The Neverseen's Project
by Honestly Who Cares
Summary: Fitz Vacker had gone missing shortly after Sophie and Dex were saved, leaving everyone distraught. Later on, Sophie, now apart of the black swan along with Keefe, Dex, and Biana, discovers that Fitz is actually alive but much different than before. With the help of her friends, will she be able to convince the black swan that Fitz is trustworthy. The council too?
1. Chapter 1: Fitz

**Hey everyone! I'm a new author to as most of my stories are on Wattpad (including this new one), but i've read so many stories here and i love them all so I decided to try something new and post here! Trying to clear some space on my notes from all the KOTLC drabbles, haha! I really hope you like! Oh also, a few facts, the whole Alden's mind break thing never happened and the group joined the Black Swan earlier but their ages are still the same on the later books. So let's just say they Joined the Black Swan close to the end of Exile, Kay? Great!**

 **Btw, I'll probably add some other ships don't worry, idk which ones tho because I'm still debating and because I'm so open to so many except any other ones with Sophie cause drop dead in LOVE with Sophitz! Sorry Sokeefe shippers, this book probs ain't for you, not that I hate Sokeefe (or team Foster-Keefe, I actually love team Foster-Keefe it's very catchy to say) but I just don't like them together like that. Even tho I have an itching feeling that they might end up together in the books which is kinda disappointing for me, I'm not totally against it, I just prefer for Keefe to tease Fitz and Sophie about them being close instead of being jealous cause I think Fitz and Keefe have the best broship EVER!**

 **But yeah, now I'm yammering so I'll shut** **up now so that you guys can read the story. Enjoy!**

~Chapter one~

Fitz walked through the cold, thick snow after miles of running, trying to shield his eyes the best he could from the bits of snowflakes that were furiously attacking from the north to the south. He had no idea where he was, nor where he was going. All he knew is that he had to get out of _that_ _place_ \- and _fast_.

 _Fitz awoke feeling dazed and confused. He was laying down on some stone pedestal with a bunch of faces looking down at him. His eyesight was blurry from awaking to a bright light shining down in his face so Fitz couldn't exactly tell who they were- not that he thought he would be able to tell if he could see. He could barely remember his own name. Slowly, everything was coming back to him enough that he knew that he didn't belong here, but it was coming back too slowly. Too slow to be able to figure out whether these people where friend or foe- whoever they were._

 _There were only a few things Fitz could truly remember at the moment: his name, who he was, and a pair of beautiful, unique brown eyes that glistened with gold flecks if exposed to anything light._

Covering the lower part of his face, Fitz tried to see where he was but all he could see at he moment was snow and hills- with snow on them. Fitz internally groaned. He was never gonna find his way back, was he? Wherever back was exactly. He was still trying to figure out where that was- and why his older brother was with them instead of wherever back was.

 _Blinking multiple times, Fitz's eyesight finally seemed to cooperate with him and the blurriness cleared almost completely. He looked left from right at all the staring faces. They all seemed to have smirks on their faces, especially own with dark, almost black hair who looked extra mischievous. Fitz decided he would want to stay from that guy. The only person who wasn't grinning was the person closest to him on his right; a man with brown curly hair, and icy blue eyes that reminded him of his mother's- his mother! Della! And his father! Alden! Instantly Fitz pictured the beautiful woman and man who struck a resemblance to himself greatly._

 _Fitz was relieved he remembered his parents- but where were they exactly? And why did this almost sympathetic looking boy looked so familiar? "A-Alvar?" He found himself saying. Alvar? He tried to remember who taut was to him. The man with his mother's eyes spoke just as he realized. "Little brother," Alvar replied with a grin._

Fitz shook his head furiously, trying to rid himself of the memories. How could his eldest brother betray his family like that? Especially his sister Biana, who looked up to Alvar just as much as he never knew he did. And Keefe, who called Alvar his hero. Thinking of the two suddenly made Fitz nostalgic and he clutched his stomach, feeling extremely homesick. His little sister and his best friend. How he missed them all- Biana and her lovable preppy yet tough attitude, Keefe and his jokes and compassion that almost everyone saw past other than Fitz himself, even Dex and his weird tinkering but genius intellect- and Sophie Foster: the girl who changed his life- forever. Would he ever see them again?

 _"Ah, so he speaks!" The dark haired guy with the mischievous looks snickered along with a few other. Alvar probably must've noticed Fitz shift a little closer to him and farther away from the intimidating black haired dude because he put a surprisingly gentle hand on his shoulder and glared at the black haired man. "Ruy, shut up, you're scaring him." Ruy? That's his name? "Aw, ain't that cute? Brotherly love. How adorable," Ruy commented, making the brown hair guy with many scars on his face chuckle. It was sinister and dark and it probably would've sounded intimidating if Fitz wasn't too busy in his own thoughts. A few names started to come back to him: Sophie. Biana. Keefe. Dex. Along with a few other things: brown eyes. Jokester. Sister. Red hair. Technopath. Empath. Friends. And one other thing; Telepath. Telepath...Telepath, telepath! He and that blonde girl with the brown eyes were telepaths!_

 _It was this moment when he suddenly realized that he didn't belong where've he was right now, even if his brother was here which he was still trying to figure out why. He belonged with those people. He didn't know where they were, but he knew he belonged with them. "Where am I?" He asked, in not a tough but not a wavering tone either, "who are you guys?" The people around him sneered. "You think you're in a position to ask questions, boy?" Ruy asked him._

Fitz rolled his eyes, remembering the stupid question/statement Ruy had made. He honestly could not stand that guy. He had come across as intimidating for the first few minutes Fitz had seen him but he had instantly gone from slightly scary to extremely annoying. Fitz hated what the Neverseen did to him, but he honestly would be perfectly fine using it against Ruy.

 _As the dark haired male spoke, Fitz couldn't help but question this guy's intelligence. Why wouldn't he be in the position to ask questions? He woke up to six faces of only one which he knew, with barely any recognition of who he was and of practically anything in his life and he's questioning why Fitz is asking questions. Honestly? Fitz gazed up at Alvar, who seemed to be thinking the exact same thing because he merely shook his head at the dark brunette. Suddenly a booming voice at there's of the pedestal went through the air. "Everybody quiet!" The voice spoke, silencing the snickering and the chatter at each side of the table._

 _Fitz looked up and saw that the man who spoke had a hood over their head. Skinny and spindly like fingers slowly pulled the hood down and revealed a man with messy blonde hair and pointy ears. Fitz figured he must've been one of the ancients. Frowning at the man's almost evil looking grin, Fitz almost had half a mind to try and probe his or any of their minds, but decided against it invade they had a telepath around. "What do you want with me?" He asked instead. The man's grin grew wider, if possible. "Oh, we're here to finish what we've started," he answered, thoroughly confusing Fitz. The man ran a hand through his messy blonde hair, reminding Fitz of Keefe, while smirking. "And we have."_

It took a while for Fitz to realize that he was shivering. Looking down at himself and seeing that he was only wearing the black, plain, three-quarter sleeved tunic with a dark brown belt with a golden buckle around near bottom of it, dark golden brown pants, black boots and black fingerless gloves that he woke up in when he was _there_ , and for a moment assumed he was shaking because of the lack of layers when he realized that he didn't feel the slightest bit cold. Suddenly remembering how quickly he learned the skill of moderating his body temperature and the other freaky things the Neverseen had done to him, Fitz realized the memories of _that place_ was what he was truly shivering about.

 _Fitz furrowed his eyebrows. What did that guy mean when he said they already finished what they started? What did they do? "Wh-what have you done to me?!" Fitz asked a bit more frantically than he ideally would've liked, and checked himself for differences or flaws or anything strange on his body- only to find himself perfectly fine and unharmed. Feeling even more confused, Fitz looked up as the collective of people chuckled silently. "Don't worry, Fitz. They didn't do anything bad to you," Akbar told him and it almost sounded assuring until Ruy inputed, "Physically at least," and then snickered. Fitz shot a slight panicked look to Alvar, who was glaring at Ruy like there was no tomorrow. "Who are they?" He asked him in a low voice._

 _Just as Alvar opened his mouth, Fintan suddenly slammed a fist down beside Fitz's foot, making him jump a little. "No! No names! Do NOT pity him!" H shrieked at Alvar. "He's my brother-" Alvar tried to protest but Fintan cut him off, "he's a_ weapon _! Nothing more than a weapon! Remember that," he warned, pointing a slightly shaking finger at Alvar who reluctantly silenced himself. He shot Fitz an almost apologetic look but Fitz was more concerned about what Fintan had called him:_ a weapon _._

Fitz continued to climb through the thick snow, only stopping for a second to see that he was nearing the end point of the mountain he barely realized he was on. Picking up his pace, he tried to trudge through the snow only to end up nearly falling face first. Huffing out an irritate grunt, Fitz back up a little before jumping over the snow, all the way to the ledge of the mountain which was barely in sight from where he once stood.

 _"What do you mean I'm a weapon?! What did you do!?" Fitz shouted at the group surrounding him. Fintan merely shrugged at his little outburst. "We didn't do much more than we did then, really." Seeing Fitz's beyond confused face, he continued, "you will most likely not remember this- actually, you better not remember this," he said, glaring at the blond haired man with piercing blue eyes standing beside Alvar, who only stared back in defiance. Fitz assumed he was a telepath. He also noticed that the man was wearing gloves. "But we had captured when you were about six or so and enhanced you're skills have you an ability, and triggered you're telepathy that we knew you were going to have to enhance it as well." Fitz broke out his thoughts to glance at the blonde in horror. He basically just told him they treated him like a lab rat when he was young unbeknownst to him like it was nothing._

 _Seeing his look, Fintan scoffed. "Oh please, don't look at me like that. You're nothing short of the Black Swan's little lab experiment. Except when we enhanced you're telepathic skills, we weren't stupid enough to leave you like that. We hid the ability back until it was ready to be manifested. However, we didn't have time to hide the other ability before that stupid organization found out so you're father found out about it and thankfully for us, kept it a secret by restricting it." Hiding an ability? Putting it back? Fitz didn't even know that was possible._

Carefully, Fitz approached the ledge and looked out, shocked to see . He looked around and saw almost all of the city. Something in the back of Fitz's mind told him to look for Everglen, but between the crystal buildings and different scenery, he couldn't see his family's property. But he did see one place that he vaguely remembered- Alluveterre. Heaving a sigh, Fitz backed up a bit before jumping over the ledge towards the property.

 _Trying to make sense of the whole situation, Fitz asked, "What exactly did you do?" The blonde grinned as if he was waiting for Fitz ask that. "We did you a spectacular favour, boy. You're mind isn't impenetrable like that stupid blonde lab rat, but that's just the point. We want people to try and get into you're kind so you can force them out." Fitz furrowed his eyebrows. "Force them out?" He asked, not liking how inferior his voice was sounding. Why did that term sound so familiar? When he suddenly realized what it was, Fitz grimaced and cringed. Forcing someone out was supposed to be impossible. "How did you make me able to do that?" He asked._

 _The collective let out a laugh, confusing Fitz more. "Oh, Fitz," the scraggly blonde said between dark chuckles, "you've always been able to do it. Those idiot councillors just washed your mind so you would forget." Fitz's eyes widened. "Wh-wha?" He asked, full on freaked out now. So this means that when he manifested as a telepath, he forced out the councillors- and even Quinlin- out of his mind?! The blonde who Fitz assumed was a telepath saw his reaction and snorted. "Oh please," he said with a careless wave of his hand, "we haven't even gotten to the best parts yet."_

Fitz wandered through the forests, trying to figure out where to go. He couldn't find his home, and everything was still too fuzzy in his brain to try and find some place else. Then it dawned on him- he couldn't go home. Not like this at least. He was practically a monster thanks to what _they_ did to him. Fitz gritted his teeth. Thanks to them, he was no more than the weapon they made him to be.

 _Fitz shuddered, trying to process the information these people he now knows as the Neverseen just told him. "So... basically you guys altered my DNA like Sophie's, and gave me the gift of foresight, enhanced reflexes, skills, and stamina," he started, "and you messed with my telepathy so that you could give me the ability to screw with people's minds," "that's right," the blonde supposedly telepath nodded in agreement. Fitz drew in a breath and continued, "and you altered my brain by giving me the mind of the perfect assassin," he finished, looking for clarification. The way they gleefully nodded practically sickened Fitz. He resisted the urge to gape at them, accurately guessing that the Neverseen was an evil organization._

 _Shaking his head, Fitz jumped of the pedestal and attempted to shove his way past the blonde telepath and his brother, but the telepath grabbed him. "Hey, where do you think you're going?" He asked almost mockingly. Fitz glared at him. "You're all insane. There is no way in my right- well, what_ once _right mind that I'll let you guys just turn me into a weapon- especially if you're planning on making me try and destroy Sophie!" He yelled at them, pushing the guys away. He saw an exit and tried to race towards it but stopped when an energy shield suddenly block it off. He turned around and saw Ruy with an extended palm smirking at him._

 _A couple of the Neverseen members grabbed him and slammed him back on the pedestal and Fitz struggled against them as the scraggly blonde and brunette with scars on his face approached him, both igniting small flames through their fingers. Fitz's eyes widened._ "Pyrokinetics," _he thought. The only illegal ability._  
 _The blonde smiled a sick, twisted smile. "Let's have some fun, shall we?" He asked him as now steaming hand approached Fitz._

Feeling like stabbing many things, Fitz struggled to resist the urge, knowing that now, he's more than perfectly capable of doing so. He hoped which ever direction he was going didn't lead him straight to Eternalia, or anywhere he really knew for that matter. Fitz was now a danger to elvin kind- at least that's how he saw it. He squeezed his eyes shut as the memories came back just as painfully as the blazing flames.

 _Fitz cried out in agonizing pain, buying back a scream as the blonde pyrokinetic burned another handprint on his right arm. "You ready to cooperate?" The blonde asked him. Fitz but his lip and shook his head. He would never let them turn him into a weapon- even if it kills him, which seems likely considering the current circumstances. The blonde narrowed his eyes and looked towards the scar faced male. "Brant," he hissed lowly, which Fitz was barely able to hear. Brant looked to Fitz with an expressionless look on his face, though it was clear in his eyes that he was enjoying this torture._

 _Fitz screamed as the he felt the hot, searing flame make a rather long burn on the edge of his jaw, much to the amusement of the others who were now snickering and laughing at his expense. He looked over at Alvar with pleading, almost begging look on his face, but his brother only turned away, avoiding his look as he just stood there and let them burn him. The cold, sharp feeling of betrayal in his heart felt just as bad as the burns on his body- maybe even worse._

His entire body shook as the memories kept shooting through his mind, each more painful than before:

 _"Stop!" Fitz cried out, tears now starting to fall down his face as the two pyrokinetics pressed their searing fists into his torso. "Please stop!"_

Fitz rolled up his shirt to examine the fairly fresh wounds,

 _The collective (excluding his brother) just laughed harder at his pain. Fitz squeezed his eyes shut, trying to stop his tears from falling any further. He thought sadism was supposed to be a human thing..._

Fitz gritted his teeth as he pounded on his head with a clenched fist, determined to get the forsaken memories out of his mind,

 _"So are you ready to obey yet?" The blonde asked him, halting his torture for just a few seconds. Fitz breathed heavily, terrified but not yet willing to be competent with these- these horrible people..._  
 _Biting his lip with sudden nervousness, Fitz shook his head defiantly. The group was anything but mollified. "Stupid kid," the scar faced pyrokinteic grumbled and continued to burn him again along with the other._

"Stop it, stop it, stop it!" Fitz yelled, hammering his fist against his skull,

 _The young telepath cried out in agony as they began to leave burns all over his body. "Stop! Oh please, stop..." He cried, weakly fighting against the arms holding him down. He didn't know if he could take much more of this..._

Fitz was now grinding his teeth so hard, one would think that they might crack under pressure,

 _"I told you to be obedient, kid! These are the consequences!" Fintan yelled as he continued to burn Fitz. Wiat- Fintan? How did he know the pyrokinteics name? And that the other one was named Brant? Fitz abruptly ceased his cries of pain. He hadn't remember reading their minds. Maybe he did it subconsciously... A burning pain on his neck caused him to gasp and remember his current situation. He looked up at the grinning faces with disgust. "Let me go!" Fitz yelled, thrashing around in their grip._

"Why won't they leave? Why won't hey leave?" Is what Fitz started to mutter to himself, despaired.

 _Brant smirked at him. "Not a chance, kid," he told him._

"Get outta my head..." he demanded,

 _At that moment, something just snapped. Fitz could feel something bubbling up inside of him- pure ire. His vision suddenly turned red, his head full of dark intentions. He barred his teeth in anger at those in front of him._

"Please just go away," he was pleading now,

 _Growling in pure anger, Fitz slammed his eyelids shut and screamed;_

"Leave me alone..."

 _"STOOOPPP!" He hollered so loudly he was sure the whole world could hear it. And at that moment, the entire group flew- literally flew- backwards for a few brief seconds until they all collided against the rock walls of the cave. Fitz sat up in horror as he observed the scene he just caused. They entire collective of the Neverseen were rendered unconscious... All because of what- his telekinesis? He wasn't even trying to use it! Fitz suddenly paled at the thought, realizing that if he had tried, he would have caused a lot more damage to them than he did before. Probably resulting in their deaths. Shuddering, Fitz hugged himself, thoroughly afraid at what he had become._

"I SAID LEAVE ME ALONE!" Fitz hollered, his voice echoing through he trees of the thick forest. Fitz took deep breaths, trying to calm himself, as he basically collapsed onto a nearby tree, fighting to closing onto the last bit of sanity he had left. Finally the pace of his breaths began to revert to a normal one and Fitz slid down the tree, sitting with his back supported by it as he ran his hands through his hair. Everything he once knew about himself; everything he was once— all remains as a lie.

He was alone now- because that's the way it has to be. He could never go back to the life he once lived: _he belonged to the dark places now_.  
Shaking his head with a quivering breath, Fitz placed his head in his hands and began to weep.

 **So how was it? I know it's not very well written and I apologize for that but I tried to quicken it up because I wanted to desperately post the next part soon. I really hope you enjoyed this though, as I'm pretty new to this fandom but all the more reason to love it as well. Don't forget to leave a review and comment!**

 **-Someonewhodoesntcare.**


	2. Chapter 2: Dead, Not Dead

**Hey guys! I got a couple of very nice reviews from TEAM SOPHIE, HuffleclawRavenpuff, and DustBunnyFromTheLostCities, so i decided to update early! Thank you so, soon much guys for the reviews, I'm really glad you like this story! I've read all of yours, of course as a guest, but still have and they're really good! So it feels really great to be noticed by some of my fav authors :)**

 **Anyways, this chapter takes place around Neverseen with bits and pieces from Lodestar, but definitely before they go to exile. I have something planned for that... Anyways, I hope you enjoy!**

Sophie swerved, scarcely missing the goblin throwing star directed at her. She and her friends, along with a few members of the Black Swan, were currently duelling it out with members of the Neverseen. They were at a Neverseen abandoned base, trying to gather information about what they were planning to do with the lost cities before they ambushed them.

She barely managed to perform a duck-and-roll to avoid another star being thrown and nearly got hit with a shot from a melder, had it not been for Dex who pushed her out of the way just in time. She shot him an appreciative smile. "Thanks Dex," she said who nodded and threw another one of his mini cubes at the Neverseen, causing a flash spark which momentarily blinds them.

Taking this as an advantage, Sophie snuck past them and tried to see if she could find any extra files but is shocked to see a figure standing in her way. She looked up. The person was quite a bit taller than her (as were a lot of people), and like most Neverseen members, had their hood up. Curiously, she averted her attention back to the fight while simultaneously trying to get into his mind to see who he was. She had never seen this member before (and she has a photographic memory too) and wondered if he had some sort of significance that the Neverseen wouldn't bother to use him yet.

Sophie managed to slip into his mind but saw nothing but darkness. She instantly realized this person must've been a telepath as they were purposely trying to hide away their thoughts from her. Almost as if they were anticipating she'd do this.

Sophie searched a little bit further, finally finding the brink of his memories. She doesn't get much time to look though as a sharp pain ripped through her mind, causing her to let out a gasp and clutch her head in agony, having no choice but to retreat from their mind. Sophie clutched her head, still feeling the aftershock of the razor like ache in her brain- and surprisingly her fingertips...

Sophie gazed down at her fingers and gasped. She shakily raises her hands up to her eyes as she inspects her fingertips that are now red and blistering.

"Wha-?" She muttered in utter horror and shock. How the heck did he do that? It was almost as if he was blocking her out- which no other telepath has ever been able to do- but she's never had any reaction to it like this before... What did he do to her?

Sophie looked up to try and see the telepath but the person still had their hood down. Twisting her confusion and slight horror into anger, she unwounded the knot in her stomach and began to inflict on him, in hopes that it would weaken him enough so she could at least get past him. The Neverseen member let out a groan of pain and hunched over a bit but did not fall over. Sophie watched in shock as they took deep breaths in and slowly started to stand up; they were fighting against her inflicting.

Furrowing her eyebrows, Sophie tried to infect harder on the person. They let out another grunt of pain but still managed to fight against it, not showing any signs of real pain. Eventually, the mental and physical strain was too much for her to continue and she dropped to the ground breathlessly, completely drained and weakened. She couldn't understand. How was this person able to fight against her inflicting? No one was able to do that… "Who are you?" Sophie breathed out, barely above a whisper.

The unknown Neverseen member seemed to hear her, and they rose their head- revealing curious looking teal blue eyes. Sophie barely caught them, but they were there- she was sure of it. Shock and hopefulness began to swell up inside her. Could it really be? Sophie began to squint to see if she could get a better look, only to realize a second later that she didn't need to- as the telepath was already in front of her in less than two seconds.

Briefly wondering how the telepath was able to get to her so quickly, Sophie tried to stand up only to collapse again. She hadn't realized how weakened she was from whatever the boy did to her head. She couldn't even find the strength to speak. She was pretty much incapacitated.

The telepath looked at her curiously, before crouching down beside her, seemingly trying to get a better look at her face. Sophie wondered if they were thinking the same thing: could it really be them? She had to be sure- if her suspicions were true, it would change everything. Mustering up the last ounce of strength she had, Sophie lunged at the telepath to yank their hood down. They grabbed her wrist, but she still managed to get the hood down- revealing dark brown hair, those sparkling teal eyes, and the face of a boy- a boy she once thought was dead.

 _It really was him._

Fitz's face was as shocked as hers was. His lips were parted, as were hers. Widened brown and teal eyes gazed into each other, and it was now that she fully realized just how much she missed gazing into those eyes. His grip on her wrist lessened and she slowly began to release his hood. They seemed to be thinking the same thing: I thought I'd never see you again. "Fitz," she felt her lips reminiscing his name before realizing it herself. His eyes got an expression in them that she couldn't quite understand and wondered if that was a mistake- "Sophie," she heard him breathe out a few seconds later. His tone held many emotions: relief, stress, worry, adoration, sombreness, guilt, content, and love.

"Foster!" They heard a call from beside them, breaking the two out of their trance. Sophie vaguely caught the approaching figures of Keefe, Dex, and Biana running towards them. She looked at Fitz who had slight panic in his gaze, and the look he gave her filled her entire body with dread- he had to leave. Although Sophie could understand why, she still felt selfish- she never wanted to be away from Fitz's presence again.

Fitz did one last thing before her left- he quickly grabbed Sophie's head and put her forehead against his, closing his eyes for a brief moment before releasing her, getting up, and running.

Sophie felt a certain emptiness once she saw Fitz disappear quickly- quicker than she had ever seen anyone else run before, much quicker. All the swarming thoughts in her brain came to a sudden halt once she realized what Fitz did for her- she slowly started to pick herself up, albeit a bit wobbly, and found herself able to stand. A small smile worked its way on her face– Fitz had given some of his energy to her.

She soon saw her friends by her side. "Hey," Keefe said, panting a bit, "You good?" Sophie nodded and tried to take a step forwards, only to almost fall on her face if it weren't for Keefe, who hastily caught her. Fitz probably only had enough time to give her enough energy to stand again. "I'm okay," she said as her friends immediately began to worry, steadying herself in Keefe's arms. "What did that guy do to you?" Biana asked firmly and Sophie paled slightly- so they had seen him...

Sophie tried to find her voice, but another wave of pain shot through her brain and she clutched her head, stumbling on her feet. "Whoa!" Keefe said, steadying her again before she fell. "What happened to you? I'm feeling a lot of stinging pain right now." He paused. "And quite a bit emotions too. A lot of emotions in fact. They're all over the place." He looked at Sophie quizzically, but before she even could think of explaining herself, Dex spoke up. "Don't worry Sophie, Biana and I will go after this guy! Keefe can bring you back to the hideout!" He exclaimed and Biana nodded in agreement before the two turned to run after Fitz.

Sophie went rigid with fear. _"No!"_ She wanted to exclaim, but couldn't find the strength in her voice, still feeling weakened. Fitz's energy effect was starting to wear off. Luckily, Keefe came to her rescue. "Holy crap! What the hell?!" He exclaimed, grabbing her hands and inspecting her read, blistering fingers. "Yo guys, hold up!" Biana and Dex stopped in their tracks and jogged back to wear Keefe and Sophie were standing. "What?" Dex asked when they got there. "Dude, look at her hands!" He said, and Sophie hissed in slight pain when he extended them for everyone else to see.

Dex and Biana gasped when they saw her fingertips. "Oh my god, what happened?!" Biana asked worriedly, cupping Sophie's hands in her own. "He... he was..." Sophie tried to get out, but she hadn't realized the extent of her headache caused by Fitz forcing her out of his mind until now. She rubbed her temple with her knuckles, unable to do it with her fingertips at the moment as a few other Black Swan members surrounded her. "Good lord! What on earth happened?" Granite exclaimed, looking just as perplexed as everyone else.

"He- he forced me out of his mind," Sophie explained, deciding to just answer everyone's questions before the big reveal so that they'd quit worrying about her. "Wait, what do you mean 'forced'?" Dex asked her, not liking the sound of the word. "I mean instead of blocking me out, he sent a razor sharp pain through my mind, which made me immediately retreat from his mind," she explained, "and then this happened." she showed her fingertips, which were now blistery red, to the rest of the group.

Granite immediately grabbed her hands, inspecting them thoroughly. "Well, I've heard of some forms of blocking hurting others, but nothing like this! Unless….." he trailed off and then suddenly turned around, gathering everyone around him and pulled out his light crystal. "We need to get her to Forkle….. Now," he said a bit frantically. "Why, what's the matter? Is Sophie going to be okay?" Dex asked nervously. "She will- but if this is caused by what I think it is…. Then we have a much bigger problem on our hands," he said.

Sophie was too mentally drained to even think about asking what he meant by that. All she could keep herself to think about was Fitz- and what on earth happened to him to have him be able to do all those things. Had he known before? Was he just keeping it to himself all those years? Or had he obtained them some how when he disappeared? Something was just odd about him... she suspected it had something greatly to do with his disappearance half a year ago. What happened to the Fitz she knew? Sophie had her mind filled with questions as they leapt away.

 ** **So how did you guys like this one? Sorry for any screw ups in spelling, I never really notice those while i'm editing and it always makes me cringe afterwards... but I really hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, and hope for another chapter soon! Well, If i have time... I mean, iI would love to try and update in school but my locer hallway is quite possibly the worst in the school, filled with some of the dumbest grade nines you make ever see... and I'm not talking about their intelligence, mostly just the things they say. I swear, every second I go in that hallway, my IQ drop 2% each time. *sigh* But I'll stop rambling now, and remember to review if you like! See you guys later!****

 ** **-Someonewhodoesntcare****


	3. Chapter 3: Fitz's Secret

**Hey guys! I'm back with a new chapter! Really good feedback from the last one, I really appreciated it and i will do my best to try and make those changes as best as I can! Anyways, without any further ado, here's chapter number three. Hope you enjoy!**

"The telepath was Fitz," was the first thing Sophie said startling everyone, even Physic, who was busy tending to Sophie's blistering fingers. Biana looked sorrow yet shocked, Dex just looked plain surprised by this, and Keefe got that same pained eyes he had every time someone mentioned Fitz's name. His "death" affected everyone deeply but it affected Keefe in a different way.

He was still the mischievous, goofy and sarcastic guy he always is, but now almost to a lesser extent. He almost completely lost all emotion inside of him when Fitz was declared dead, almost as if a part of him was lost inside, that part being Fitz. It took forever to get him back to the way he was now.

Sophie almost regretted saying his name, but it had to be said. Everyone needed to know that Fitz was still alive, and it would be selfish of her to keep that information to herself..

"What're you saying Sophie?" Mr. Forkle said as he handed Sophie a bottle of liquid to drink to help clear her aching head, "you know Fitz's- passing was declared by the council-" "since when were you the type to believe the council?" She asked more sharply than she would've liked but the remark did silence him. She looked around at the rest of the group. "Since when were any of you?" She asked them too.

When they didn't reply, she spoke, "we all know that the council only declared him "dead" because they couldn't find him nor could they explain his absence. Nor could anyone," she said matter-o-factly, then made a dead serious, "until now." Mr. Forkle looked at her. "And what do you suppose we do?" He asked her. Sophie have him a bewildered look. "What else? We get him back," she said like it was obvious.

Everyone still looked uncertain though. "Look Sophie," Granite said, "Even if what your saying is true, we still can't explain his sudden absence, nor what had happened to him. He might've even forgotten who we all are by now." But Sophie shook her head firmly. "No," she said, "I know that it was him. I saw it with my own two eyes. And he recognized me too! We said each other's names!" She argued, then took a deep breath. "And as for his absence," she said, letting out a shaky breath, "I think the Neverseen had captured Fitz."

Everyone was quiet for a moment, whether in shock, thoughtfulness, or both. Then Biana furrowed her eyebrows and frowned. "But I don't get it," she said a bit shakily before looking at everyone, "what would the Neverseen want with my brother?" The collective group looked at each other with knowing eyes, save for the kids who just looked plain confused. "You're hiding something," Dex said plainly, his tone offering no argument. Squall sighed. "We are," she admitted, "but we had p-"

Mr. Forkle suddenly raised a hand, stopping Squall from continuing. They seemed to have a small debate through eye communication for a short while before they all looked up towards he kids who were now looking expectant eyes. "You know exactly why they want Fitz, don't you," Keefe asked them, and icy cold bitterness could faintly be detected in both his tone and his eyes. Biana put a comforting hand on his arm and his eyes softened, but Sophie suspected his bitterness had a little more meaning to it than Fitz's capture.

Mr. Forkle nodded. "Yes Mr. Sencen, we do. It is not exactly information to share, but if Sophie is speaking the truth, which she most likely is, then it is almost a perfect explanation for these," Mr. Forkle gently raised Sophie's hands, presenting her how healing fingertips. Sophie looked at Mr. Forkle with a curious glance. Then she glanced at Granite. "He told me that this was serious," she said slowly. Mr. Forkle nodded his head. "It is serious, Sophie. It's very serious."

Sophie nodded her head slowly, gesturing for him to continue. Now having the attention of everyone, Mr. Forkle heaved out a huge breath. "Perhaps I should start with what exactly happened to Sophie," he said, "you see miss Foster, you were none too short from the truth when you said this boy "forced" you out of his mind," he told her. Keefe raised an eyebrow. "So that's a thing?" He questioned.

"It is indeed," Mr. Forkle confirmed, nodding his head solemnly. "Then what's the big deal?" Dex asked. "The big deal, Mr. Dizznee, is that only one person has ever been able to do such a thing." "Who, Foster?" Keefe asked but Sophie shook her head before Mr. Forkle did. "I've never had that happen in my life, let alone heard of it until now," Sophie said. "So, who's the person who can do it?" Biana asked curiously. The Black Swan looked at each other wearily once more before Wraith finally answered. "That would be your brother, Biana," he told her.

The kids all gasped, especially Biana. "F-Fitz?" She asked perplexed, "what- how-?" Mr. Forkle took the liberty to explain. "We all knew how strong of a telepath Mr. Vacker is himself," he said, and they all nodded, even Dex, "well I'm sure most of you except Sophie and maybe Dex that is, know that he was also had a reading by Councillor Terik."

This time both Sophie and Dex didn't nod. She had never heard of this before. "When?" She asked and Biana gave her a small smile, "when he was five," she answered for everyone, "when Alvar was sent to get descried, Fitz was offered one too. He was really happy about it." Sophie could understand why. Apparently Councillor Terik hated descrying people, as it caused too much burden on him. So for him to offer to descry Fitz must've been a big deal.

"However," Mr. Forkle started to speak again, catching everyone's attention once more, "one of the reasons why Councillor Terik had offered to do so was because he could sense Fitz's potential from afar. He was curious to see how'd he become," he explained, "when Councillor Terik said that Fitz would surpass Alden's incredible telepathy skills, he left out one thing: he had also sensed extreme power in the boy."

"Once Fitz manifested as a telepath, he excelled in his classes and training far faster than anyone we have heard of other than yourself, Sophie," Mr. Forkle said, "his mind automatically adapted and understood things faster than others. He's always had that talent in him but it didn't really emerge until he manifested. Councillor Terik had sensed that in him but warned Alden that it may be taken advantage of so they- restricted it somehow."

"Restricted it?" Sophie asked, hating the word ever since the ability restrictor incident. Dex rubbed his shoulder uncomfortably. Sophie had long since forgiven him for the incident but Dex still felt terribly guilty about it. "Yes miss Foster. Only to a certain extent," he said, "But it wasn't until they brought him to Councillor Emery that they truly recognized the powerful need of Fitz's telepathy."

Everyone casts a slight worried glance to each other but Mr. Forkle still continued. "Very much like you Sophie, his talent comes from practice. But whereas your best talent in searching and working with other people's minds and thoughts, Fitz's is with his blocking skills. They are impeccable, not to the extent of your impenetrable mind, but they are still very skilled for someone his age. When he went to see Councillor Emery to see if he could get into Fitz's mind, he was said to have a very hard time trying to get in, but still managed to."

"But just when Councillor Emery reached his thoughts he suddenly felt a sharp pain rip through his mind, causing him to retreat from his mind and his fingertips to start blistering." Sophie gasped, the description being pretty much exactly how she had felt. "Fitz forced Emery out?" She asked while everyone else looked to shocked to speak. "He did," Mr. Forkle confirmed with a nod, "though it was unintentional, Fitz's mind had automatically forced him out. Though his finger tips weren't bleeding like yours were, they were still red and blistering."

Sophie mouth was slightly agape. She had no idea Fitz was this powerful. "None of them knew what was going on. Granted most of hem knew what it was, but they didn't think it was possible to do since forcing requires such a high level of concentration so they couldn't understand why Fitz was able to do it so effortlessly let alone accidentally," Granite took over talking this time, "they brought him to Quinlin and asked him to do the same, but just like Emery, he was forced out too."

None of the kids could believe their ears. Who would've guessed Fitz was capable of doing such a thing? A sudden curiosity had risen in Sophie and she asked, "if it's automatic, then why didn't he force me out when he let me read his mind in the lost cities? I think he was blocking then too." "That would be because they had put a restriction on his blocking too. They also washed him so that he wouldn't remember the incident, nor the power of his block," Granite answered.

"It was contained and hidden until shortly after the kidnapping of miss Foster and Mr. Fizz new when Fitz suddenly 'disappeared'," Mr. Forkle spoke again, "if it was the Neverseen that caught him, we wouldn't know how they would've known about Fitz's tele-" "Alvar," Biana said quietly and everyone gave her sympathetic looks. The girl was still quite disturbed by the betrayal of her eldest brother and now that both of them are in the Neverseen, it must be even more painful.

"That does make sense, Biana. And assuming Fitz is with the Neverseen, we have a bigger problem than we thought." The words reminded Sophie of a question she needed to ask. "Hold on," she said and everyone looked at her, "Granite said these- my fingertips I mean," she said, holding them a up a bit, "were a big problem. Why is that exactly?" She questioned curiously.

The Black Swan glanced nervously at each other before Mr. Forkle spoke. "Miss Foster," he started, "there's no chance you were touching Fitz when you tried to read his mind at all, am I correct?" Sophie nodded. "Yeah, I wasn't touching him," she said. "Well then there's the problem. You see, all the times Mr. Vacker forced people out of his mind, the splintering fingertips were only caused by touch- physical contact. Mainly by the temples," Mr. Forkle explained, "for him to have caused you're fingers to splinter from such a distance must've been from a complex amount of concentration that we think the Neverseen might've enhanced."

 **Hope you guys enjoyed this chapter! Hopefully I'll find time to spare to update once mor but I have a dance comp on Thursday which means a lot of my time will have to go to school work to try and catch up, also I do have people waiting on a new chapter of a story on wattled and I don't want to disappoint. But yeah, don't forget to review and tell me how you guys liked this! Feedback is always helpful!**

 **-Someonewhodoesntcare**


	4. Chapter 4: On the Run

**Hey guys, I'm back! Sorry I hadn't updated in a while, but school's really been killing me and i had a dance competition two weeks ago, and now I have one in Niagara this Thursday and Friday, and stuff's been going down at school, and- *sigh* Well, I think you get the point**

 **Anyways, thank you soooooo much for the lovely reviews, you all are too nice! I'm sorry to say that this chapter is going to be shorter than the last two and that it's not as- exciting either, but my head is just bursting with ideas for the next chapter (which admittedly, isn't going to be much action either), and I had started this a while ago, and I decided that it just had to get done today! Either way, I hope you enjoy it and once again, sorry for any grammar or spelling mistakes! Enjoooooy!**

Fitz puffed heavily as he ran at a steady pace. He exactly know where he was going- or where he was trying to get to either. All he knew was that he had to run... Didn't he?

Fitz sighed as he came to an abrupt stop. Of course he didn't need to- he could've stayed there, he knew he could have. He could've waited for them to come so he could explain himself. He could've been there to greet his friends and his beloved sister after all this time. He could've stayed and seen the expressions on their faces when they saw it was him-

Or wait—

Thinking about that made Fitz realized why he did run and why he was sure he _had_ to. He was a coward- and ultimate fool who is constantly running from his past in fear. He didn't want them to see who he'd become- or had been made into- after all this time. He couldn't bear to see the looks of distraught and horror when they saw who he truly was now- a monster.

Nothing but a low, dangerous, unwanted monster.

He was disgusted with himself– so why should they feel any different?

Sighing to himself, Fitz stopped back at the small little hut that he had made for himself. It wasn't much- a few stolen blankets for a bed, food, water, clothing, and his other few belongings was all that it contained- but it was home. And Fitz had made it sturdy and strong enough so that it should be able to outlast a few small storms.

Fitz entered his hut and laid down on the soft grass, linking his hands behind his head. He didn't really know himself why he was at that old Neverseen hideout to begin with- maybe he was looking for some clues, or files on what else they might've done to him; because although the Neverseen told him a lot, they definitely didn't tell him everything. After all, they were just planning on using him as a weapon. Why would you tell your weapon every single one of his powers when he could easily use them against you? The Neverseen might be horrible elves, but they definitely weren't dumb ones. They were just as secretive and complex as the Black Swan was known to be.

But of course, he found nothing. No files about why the Neverseen chose him in the first place, nor any explanation about these weird feelings he gets and how something bad or dangerous happens to or around him every time after he feels them. So all in all, Fitz remained left in the dark about who he was and the extent of his powers- and he was well beyond starting to get sick of it.

 _"I just need somewhere to go,"_ he decided in his head, _"somewhere I won't be a threat or dangerous to other elves or beings."_ Fitz groaned, and ran his hands over his face. The idea itself sounded impossible to him. Where in Eternalia would there ever be a place where he wasn't a threat? _"Ravagog,"_ Fitz thought to himself before snickering, and shaking his head. No way in hell would he be stupid enough to go there. Though ogres were very violent creatures and he would fit in well with their- brutish ways, Fitz knew, as every elf did, that elves were especially not welcome in ogre territory.

His enhanced senses picked up the sound of footsteps. Fitz quickly got to his feet and went outside his hut, hoping there was no one from the council or worse, the _Neverseen_ , trying to find him. The sounds got quieter and Fitz moaned in annoyance, realizing his hearing must've picked up something or someone trekking through the woods, probably miles away from where he was. He sincerely hoped his senses would calm down after awhile, for it was just his, "assassin tendencies" that was making him alert to every single sound of footsteps or people.

Fitz looked over at the trees and frowned. Some of the branches were noticeably dying. He knew that he was around gnome territory- where the best produce and healthiest wildlife was grown- so what was happening? He had heard a rumour that there was a deadly sickness infecting the gnomes, but he hadn't acknowledged it until now. He hoped that everything was okay- although he didn't expect the council to do anything good about it. They were always late about things... That had always irritated him. The councillors could be quite conceited when it came to decision making sometimes.

Suddenly, Fitz's hearing picked up another sound- or sounds he should probably say. They consisted of different adults yelling out different instructions about- levitating? They sounded angry and irritated, but also vey dull, like they have given these instructions so many times before. Fitz's eyes widened when he realized who those voices belonged to:

Exillium instructors.

"Perfect!" Fitz gasped and, for the first time in a long time, actually cracked a small smile. That was a place where he could go! In those uniforms, he would be practically unrecognizable, and that way, it would make the Neverseen and the council harder to find him! The Black Swan too!

Fitz frowned a little. He knew Sophie had probably already told the others who he was and she was probably now trying to convince them to find him. But he couldn't let her do that- she would only be putting herself and their friends in more danger without realizing it. How was he supposed to tell her that the Neverseen was after him too?

Shaking those thoughts out of his head, Fitz refocused to the task at hand: he needed to get to Exillium- and fast. There was absolutely no time to spare. He needed a place where he could keep a low pitiful and work to control his powers from going haywire. Packing what little things he found necessary, Fitz started his journey to Exillium, using only his instincts as navigation. Well, that and his hearing. He couldn't completely rely on it– it was an on-and-off kind of thing– but he knew that if he followed his instincts, which so far, were always correct, he would find his way.

Hopefully soon too: because the last thing Fitz needed was to encounter anyone, _anyone—_ from his past.

 **So sorry for the shortness and boringness again! Truthfully, There won't be much action until props chapter 6, because I was planning on making the next chapter full of fluffiness and reminiscing of Fitz from our other beloved characters (spoiler!), and I think you may enjoy that, but warning: Knowing me, I tend to overwrite shit waaaaay too much, so I'm apologizing ahead of time because it will probably be one long ass chapter. Hope ya liked this one though, since Fitz P.O.V's are gonna be somewhat of a rarity in this story ;) Please review on how this chapter was and any way about ho I should improve my writing, and feel free to tell me just how magnificently boring you all probably found this chapter because in all honesty, it nearly killed me writing this, i haaaate writing transition chapters... (-_-) Anyways, I gotta go, my sister is influencing my nephew that tugging on my foot to get me out of the house is acceptable. Plus, I'm rambling too much (as always) so yeah. Until next time guys!**

 **-Someonewhodoesntcare**


	5. Chapter 5: Reminiscence (part 1)

**Hey guys! I understand that this chapter was a tiny bit... f*cked. So I edited and posted it again just so that it won't turn out all wonky. Hope you enjoy, and are able to read it properly now, sorry for the mishap!**

Biana sighed, as she climbed all the way back into her treehouse. She had just told her mom the news about Fitz, and she broke into tears, more than joyful knowing that her son is alive.

But that was the thing that bothered her...

If he was here all this time, why didn't he come home? Did he feel as if he wasn't wanted? Biana hoped not. He must not realize how much he's missed at home...

Flopping down into her bed, Biana picked up a picture and cracked a tiny smile: the picture was of her and Fitz when they were children. Biana was sitting in his lap, grinning brightly, while Fitz smiled that regal smile he always had, even mastering it at the age of 8. Despite what most think, this was definitely one of Biana favourite pictures. A single tear rolled its way down her cheek. She missed her brother...

 _-Flashback-_

 _"Fitz!" An almost 6 year-old Biana bursted into her brother's room. The 8 year-old was still sleeping—which was quite acceptable given the time—but that didn't quite stop Biana from rushing over to her brother's bed and jumping on top of him. "Fitzy, Fitzy, Fitzy, Fitzy, Fitzy!" She repeated frantically several times as she jumped up and down and her brother's slumbering figure over and over again._

 _Fitz grunted and rolled around in annoyance—but he was smiling. "Bianaaaa..." He moaned, lazily looking up at her from his side. "It's like, 4 in the morning... Whaddaya wan?" His words were a bit slurred from fatigue. Biana looked at him with distress. "I want a song!" She said, shaking his shoulders. Fitz knew immediately what she was talking about and groaned. "No. Not now. Go back to sleep," he said, pushing her off of him as he turned back to his side and shut his eyes, attempting to fall back asleep himself._

 _His response didn't seem to satisfy the little girl the slightest. Biana frowned and jumped back on top of her brother—causing him to emit another grunt—and pouted. "But I can't!" She whined._

 _"Why not?" Fitz yawned._

 _"Because I'm already awake!"_

 _"Then get unawake," Fitz's words were muffled as he shoved his face into his pillow. Biana fell to his side and looked at him with puppy dog eyes, even though his eyes were shut. However, he could feel her shaking and wondered what was wrong. "But...I had a nightmare," She said, sniffling gently._

 _'That explains it,' Fitz thought to himself. He knew why Biana didn't mention it earlier—five years-old, and she still tried to act like an independent woman. He sighed and opened his eyes—only to be greeted with the most precious, horrified and pleading eyes his little sister had ever given him. Fitz's expression immediately softened at her face. "Come here," he said after a while, opening up his sheets to her. Biana looked a little less frantic, but still scared nonetheless. She climbed into the sheets beside her brother and snuggled into his side. Fitz draped an arm over his sister and rested his chin on her head. Even though she wasn't facing him, she could still tell that she was terrified—she was shaking like an earth tremor._

 _"Shhh," Fitz tried to soothe her as Biana started sniffling again. "I'm here. It's okay." After a while, Fitz started to softly sing one of the lullabies he remembered their mother singing to him when he was about four years-old._

 _Almost nobody knew that Fitz could sing—the only two people that were lucky enough to know were Biana and their mother– Della, only because she caught Fitz singing along to a song she was humming once, and Biana because she had accidentally stumbled into a room were he was singing, unbeknownst to him. Fitz didn't sing too often, but when he did, it was basically the equivalent to hearing an angel._

 _Fitz sung the lullaby until he heard Biana's breathing slowed down to a normal pace. Before they both even knew it, she was fast asleep, snuggled into her brother's side with a small smile on her face. Fitz heard her gentles breaths of slumber and smiled as well. He kissed the back of his little sister's head before saying, "Goodnight B," and falling asleep as well._

 _-End of Flashback-_

Biana hadn't realized she was full-on crying until she noticed the drops of her tears on her pillow. Sniffling, she put the picture back on the table and dropped her head onto her pillow, letting all the tears fall out. It was then when she decided that no matter what the Black Swab said, nothing would stop her from finding her brother— _nothing_.

Even if it meant that she'd have to find him herself.

Heck, even Dex missed the golden boy that was Fitz backer. He knew he and Fitz had never seen eye-to-eye—and admittedly that was mostly his doing. He knew he shouldn't of let his jealousy get the better of him every time Fitz tried to be on friendly terms with him—but how can you compete with someone just that _perfect_?

When Fitz was pronounced dead, it affected him a lot more than Dex would've thought. True, when anyone is pronounced dead, it's a tragedy for death is so uncommon in the elvin world—but Fitz's death hit him particularly more than any other did. Probably because e knew him personally, and not just of-him. But then there was the deep feeling of remorse and regret that came with it, and Dex soon understood that he felt guilty for how he had previously treated Fitz.

He sighed as he fiddled with the twiggler—a project the black swan had needed his technopathic "skills" for. Dex assumed that was another reason why he was jealous. Why did he have to be stuck with the lame ability?

However, he had always failed to notice how everyone's eyes would light up with wonder every time he used his technopathy—including Fitz's. Dex sighed again, and he dropped the invention on his bed before he went crazy with fiddling about with a stupid little machine that might not even work. His mind wandered back to the day when Fitz had asked him to find Sophie—and the dreadful time of when he'd been kidnapped.

 _-Flashback-_

 _"Dex!" Dex sighed and rolled his eyes. He could recognize that insufferable accent anywhere. And after the fight he just had with Sophie, he did NOT want to talk to him. Closing his locker up, Dex continued to walk away and pretend he didn't hear him._

 _But Fitz wouldn't let it go. "Dex please! I know you can hear me. Please wait up!" He called. "Wow, he actually remembered my name!" Dex muttered bitterly and sarcastically under his breath, but something in Fitz's tone sounded awfully desperate—he sighed and turned around, deciding to see what the golden boy wanted. "What do you want,_ Wonderboy _?" He asked him harshly._

 _Fitz bristled a bit at the nickname but he quickly shook it off. "Please, I need your help," he says. "It's Sophie." Dex raised an eyebrow. "Sophie's in trouble?" He asked a little frantically despite himself. Fitz shook his head (though, unbeknownst to both of them, she actually was). "No," he replied. "She's jut upset—and because you're her best friend, I think she would really want to talk to you." Dex looked at him skeptically again. "If you're so concerned, why didn't you do it yourself?" He mumbled, then mentally cursed himself. 'Darn it, Dex! Don't give him any ideas!' He thought to himself. 'The last thing you need is the Wonderboy to go comforting YOUR best friend when you had the chance to us yourself.'_

 _But Fitz's reply was something he definitely want expecting. In fact, he looked down, seeming a little guilty as he spoke. "She won't want to talk to me," he murmured. Dex's eyebrows rose in realization. "Wait— Sophie's_ mad _at you?!" He asked him incredulously. "Me and Biana," Fitz admitted, rubbing his shoulder sheepishly. He didn't even need to respond because Dex already knew the answer._

 _Glee filled up inside of him and he could almost feel himself grinning until another realization hit him– and then he started to glower at Fitz. "What did you do to her?!" He asked him angrily. Fitz raised his arms up in defence. "I didn't do anything! Well, directly..." He muttered. "Directly?!" Dex asked, still angry and confused. "Yes, we don't mean to make her upset! It's just I think Biana might of told her some stuff and—" he cut himself off with a sigh and a shake of his head. "Could you just see if she's alright? Please?"_

 _Dex debated it for a moment. On one hand, he didn't want to do the 'Perfect Vacker's' any favours: but on the other hand, Sophie was his friend—and she obviously needed someone right now; someone like him. "Alright. I'll go find her," he said after a while and Fitz's eyes shone with gratefulness. "Thank you—" he started to say but Dex silenced him with his hand. "Don't flatter yourself, Wonderboy— I'm not doing this for you; I'm doing it for Sophie," he said, and walked off without another word._

 _––_ _Later on––_

 _Dex moaned and groaned in pain at the infirmary. Damn, was he gonna feel these burns and bruises tomorrow. He could barely handle feeling them today! He still didn't know who his and Sophie's saviour was— but he was grateful for whoever it was. A knock on the door pulled him from his thoughts. "Come in," Dex said, although a little confused. He thought he'd seen all his visitors today– his family, the council, Grady and Edaline, Marella, and Sophie. But it seemed that wasn't the case._

 _As the door opened slowly, Dec was shocked, to say the least, when his surprise visitor turned out to be Fitz. He quickly covered his shock with a scowl. "Why're you hear, Wonderboy?" He asked him snappishly. Fitz didn't react to the nickname this time. He instead walked slowly—and almost timidly—towards Dex, looking down at his feet as if he were afraid to make eye contact. Dismissing this, Dex continued. "Did you get lost on your way to see Sophie or something?" He snapped again._

 _"Actually, I just came back from seeing her," he said softly—so soft, that Dex could barely hear it. "And to be honest, I'm actually—and sincerely—here to see how you are doing," he told him. Dex blinked in surprise. Fitz was concerned about him? "You are?" He asked disbelievingly. Fitz nodded. Yeah," he said quietly, then got that guilty demeanour again. "A-and to say I'm sorry."_

 _Dex raised an eyebrow. "Sorry for what?" He asked confusedly. He honestly had no clue what the Wonderboy had to be sorry about. "For sending you to find Sophie," he admitted. Dex narrowed his eyes. "Why, you wish it was you instead of me?" He asked him annoyedly. Fitz quickly shook his head. "No!" He said. "I_

 _mean— well I'm glad you found Sophie and was able to try and help her and all, but..." He trailed off and sighed, turning his head to the side. Dex widened his eyes. Was Fitz Vacker—_ the _Fitz Vacker— crying in his presence?!_

 _Fitz spoke after a while. "Its just that– if I never had asked you to go and find Sophie, this never would've happened to you. And I'm sorry," he said finally. This time, Dex rose his eyebrows in surprise. Huh. So the Wonderboy was really concerned about him. He briefly wondered if he should make Fitz feel bad—after all, it was often that Fitz opened up to his mistakes. But after seeing the boy cry, Dex felt a little pity for him. He still didn't like him, but he had came all this way just to see how he was doing. It was the least he could do._

 _"Fitz it's not you fault," he said. Fitz wiped the tear off his cheek and looked at him, rather surprised like. "Y-you don't... Blame me?" He asked him innocently. Dex snorted. "Of course not!" He said as if it was obvious. "Like you said, Sophie needed me—and I was there to help her. You couldn't of known that the we would've gotten kidnapped. It was out of your control. Don't burden yourself on it," he said, offering a small, short smile._

 _Fitz smiled a small smile back. "Thanks, Dex," he said, still sounding a little surprised, as if he didn't expect Dex to sympathize him at all. To be completely honest, Dex was pretty shocked himself. But it wasn't everyday you saw someone so high and mighty like Fitz cry. Dex nodded in acknowledgement to his thanks._

 _The two sat/stood in semi awkward silence before Fitz cleared his throat. "Well, I should probably leave you to rest now," he said, shuffling to the door abut awkwardly. Dex nodded again. "Uh huh," he said, feeling a bit awkward himself. Fitz then headed towards the door. But just before he left, he paused and turned around to face him. "And Dex?" He said, catching his attention once more. "...Yeah?" Dex asked a little warily, raising an expectant eyebrow. Fitz smiled—a real, genuine smile. "I really hope you get better soon," he said, before leaving and closing the door behind him._

 _Dex just sat there looking at the door in surprise. "Thank– you..." He said a little unsurely, even though Futz was probably long gone. Then he sighed. Even though Fitz had visited him out of the kindness of gay heart, he still managed to make him ten times more frustrated. How could he continue to hate someone who wouldn't stop being so– so— perfect?_

 _-End of Flashback-_

Dex never did tell anyone that Fitz had cried, although he had considered the idea. He just figured that no one would believe him anyway— well that, and he was never the one for spreading rumours. That, he always left for the other elves to do.

Dex looked at his twiggler—he really hoped this invention worked out. After the failure of retrieving Prentice from Exile, not to mention the sudden news of Fitz's return, the Black Swan really needed a win— _desperately_. He looked out the window of his tree house and sighed when he saw Keefe just sitting on the ground, looking out into the forest. He felt really bad for the boy- first he realizes his moms a villain, and then he realizes the best friend he gouge was dead for the longest time, actually isn't. Dex shook his head in sympathy at the thought.

An idea suddenly shot into his brain—the twiggler could probably find any elf he wanted to with just a few more tweaks. If he finished the twiggler, he could possibly find Fitz for the gang! Motivated by this, he began to do what he does best: tinker.

 **So there it is! I apologize once more for the stupid code crap, I have no idea why it went like that... But anyways, I'm glad you guys told me, otherwise I would've had no idea! Please forgive me for this technical mishap, and as i said before:**

 **WARNING: Sophitz fluff ahead! ;)**

 **-Someonewhodoesntcare**


	6. Chapter 6: Reminiscence (part 2)

**Hiya guys! Whats up? Hows life!? Pretty great huh? Eveyrthings good in life, is it not?**

 **...**

 ***sigh* Okay, so obviously this positivity thing is not gonna work out. But basically what I'm trying to say is: please don't kill me...**

 **Look, I know I told you guys that this was gonna be only a two part, but then I foolishly forgot about how much I love Keefe and Fitz as a broship, and I got just a tad bit carried away with Keefe's flashbacks... In fact, this is the shortened version to be completely honest.**

 **BUT ON THE BRIGHT SIDE, I DID MY FIRST SOLO AT MY STUDIO'S END OF THE YEAR SHOW, AND EVERYONE LOVED IT ALOT SO THATS GOOD RIGHT?! Eh? Ehh?**

 **...Yeah no. Ya know what, imma just shut up so you can go ahead and start...**

Keefe just sat there- he wasn't looking at anything in particular, nor was he looking for something to look at: he was looking for something, anything, to distract him from his thoughts.

After finding out that his best friend was actually alive, he had felt a little bit of hope- but it quickly faded back into misery. Why hadn't Fitz came back? Surely he didn't feel like he couldn't….. did he? The thought made Keefe's stomach churn with guilt and remorse. Fitz shouldn't feel that he couldn't come back to his family because of what they did to him.

Keefe was actually more angry than anything. Because of the damn Neverseen and his damn mother, his best friend was captured, most likely tortured, and now felt like he was dangerous to the world. Keefe could tell he was feeling like that. he had always been so in tune with Fitz's emotions more than anybody- even more than Foster's.

Sighing, he continued to look out in the distance, observing every tree, every branch, every plant. But nothing could distract him from his thoughts about his best friend; and the guilt and pain he felt knowing he couldn't do anything to help him.

 _-Flashback-_

 _A 10 year-old Keefe looked around curiously, standing beside his father and mother as they waited for Alden Vacker to come and greet them at the door. He originally wasn't supposed to accompany his parents as his father and Lord Alden discussed- whatever they needed to discuss. But for some strange reason, his mother insisted. Apparently the Vacker's had a son close to his age, and she wanted them to meet. Keefe found it very odd- his mother usually couldn't care less if he had friends or not, as long as he looked presentable. Keefe also highly doubted that this kid would like him (as nobody else did), but nonetheless, he agreed because it was better than being left alone at the house again. Plus, the Vacker's had a very nice-looking place and he brought his sketchbook with him in case he got bored._

 _His mother looked down at him and frowned. "Keefe, for the love of everything, stop fidgeting!" she scolded, straightening him and forcing his arms to the side. "You'll mess up your clothes!" Keefe frowned as she straightened his hair, and when she wasn't looking, he quickly messed it up again. His mom could do anything she want to his clothes, but the hair was out of bounds._

 _The front door then opened, revealing a tall, kind looking man with teal eyes. The man smiled at all of them. "Greetings, Lord and Lady Sencen!" The man, who Keefe assumed was Lord Alden, greeted them warmly. "Come in, come in!" As Keefe stepped inside, close behind his mother, he couldn't help but look around in awe. Jeez! The Vacker's sure lived up to their high-esteemed title! 'Their house must be as big as mine,' Keefe thought to himself, which was hard to believe considering a lot of nobility had smaller houses than his father's—which was more than understandable considering their house was much too large for just three people and the gnomes who helped around the house._

 _"Oh, Alden! You didn't tell me they were here so soon!" A random voice came from nowhere in particular. Keefe looked around wildly, then gasped in shock when a slender and very beautiful woman appeared out of thin air beside Lord Alden. She had cobalt blue eyes and a lovely smile of her own. She blinked in and out of sight as she approached, a typical thing when it comes to vanishers- it startled Keefe nonetheless though. He forgot that Lady Della was a vanisher._

 _Hearing his gasp, Lady Della looked down at him and smiled warmly. "Why, this must be your son, Keefe!" She said beaming down at him. "Keefe, present yourself properly," his father scolded lightly, for he was still hidden from proper sight. Blushing, Keefe stepped out from behind his mother and offered her a bright smile. "Hello ma'am," He greeted her politely. Della let out a hearty chuckle. "My, he certainly strikes a grand resemblance to you, Lord Cassius," she commented and Keefe resisted the urge to frown. He didn't really like being referred to his father because only he knew that it wasn't a really good thing._

 _His mother smiled. "More and more each day," she said, smoothening Keefe's hair again, much to his annoyance. "Well, if you'd fallow me to the kitchen. I made mallowmelt!" Della said with a light clap of her hands. The boy's ears perked up at the mention of the tasty treat but his father acknowledged him first. "Keefe, you will find Fitz it the backyard," he told him before walking off with the rest of the adults. Keefe quickly hurried up to keep with his long strides. "But dad," he said, tugging gently on his father's cape, "Dad, I don't know where to go." But ultimately, he was ignored. Keefe sighed and drooped his shoulders. It wasn't surprising. To be honest, he would've been much more surprised if his dad_ had _answered him._

 _Clutching his notebook, Keefe wandered around the grand staircase, trying to find the door to the back. It took him a good five minutes—after all, this house was huge. But thanks to his photographic memory, he was able to find the back without going down a hall he'd gone down before. Keefe didn't usually like his photographic memory, but he had to admit that it did help with some things, and prevented him from getting into any sticky situations that other kids might stumble into._

 _Stepping into the backyard, he gasped in shock. The Vacker's yard was just as beautiful as their house was. Keefe even preferred it to the house, having been raised in a grand home, and his experience was not as grand the house made it seem. Besides, he always much preferred the outdoors._

 _Keefe looked around, but couldn't find Fitz anywhere– also understandable, considering this yard was at least half the square feet of their house. After a bit he gave up and sat himself on the soft grass, right in front of the Vacker's beautiful garden. Figuring this would make a good photo, Keefe took out his notebook and began to sketch._

 _For a few good minutes the boy just sat there and sketched, enjoying the peace and tranquility of the garden. He smiled, drawing down another part of the garden. He hadn't felt this relaxed in a long time—_

 _"Hi,"_

 _Keefe jumped slightly and a whipped his head around. His eyes were greeted with the figure of a brunette haired boy who resembled lord Alden greatly. Keefe assumed that this must be Fitz. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to startle you," he apologized. Keefe shook his head. "No, it's fine," he assured him. "Y-you're Fitz right? Lord Alden's son?" He bucked up the courage to ask, mentally scolding himself for stuttering. But Fitz didn't seem to mind. He nodded with a smile, a hint of pride in his tone as he affirmed, "that's right!" Then he looked at Keefe, tilting his head a bit. "And you're Keefe? Lord Cassius and Lady Gisela's son?" He asked, eyebrows raised. Keefe fought the urge to grimace. "Unfortunately," he muttered, going back to sketching._

 _Instead of looking at him weirdly like most kids would do, Fitz chuckled some. "What's so unfortunate about that?" He asked him. He obviously thought that Keefe was joking. "Let's just say, it's a miracle if they remember I'm actually apart of the family sometimes," he answered in a murmur like tone. He didn't notice Fitz widen his eyes in shock. "Are you being serious?" He asked him. Keefe sighed. "I guess I'm exaggerating a little. They do remember me whenever they need to yell, scold, or reprimand me," he mumbled, adding a few more details._

 _"Oh..." He heard Fitz trail off and then it was silent for a while. Keefe felt like smacking himself. Great. Another potential friend he probably either scared off or made think that he's some kind of moron with mommy and daddy issues. Juuuuuust_ perfect _._

 _However, as it turns out, he didn't scare him off. It actually took Keefe feeling Fitz's presence after a while to realize that the boy was actually quietly observing him draw. He didn't find it weird though. In fact, he was pretty glad that someone was finally taking interest in his artistic passion. He didn't mind an audience._

 _"I like you're drawing," Fitz's voice appeared beside him much closer than he expected, and it took a lot of willpower for Keefe not to jump in surprise again. He turned his head to see the teal-eyed boy now kneeling beside him. Fitz noticed his glance and smiled at Keefe before looking back down at his drawing again. "...You do?" Keefe asked, having a hard time believing it. Nobody really liked his drawings—or cared about them to be completely honest. Fitz nodded, the smile never leaving his face. "Mmhm!" He said, "It's really good! It's of the garden right?" He asked, pointing towards it. Keefe nodded slightly. "...Yeah," he said. Fitz smiled at him again—this time, his smile full of admiration. It made Keefe feel something he had never really felt before– pride._

 _"It's incredibly accurate," he breathed out in awe, looking at his drawing again. Keefe looked down at it as well. "You think so?" He asked Fitz, looking up at him. Fitz looked up at him too, nodding his head. "Yeah," he said, grinning at him—and this time, Keefe grinned back. He could feel it– the start of a newfound friendship._

* * *

 _"Remind me how I retrieving the ball that_ you _got stuck is fair," Fitz asked down to Keefe in a joking tone as he scaled up the tree. The two thirteen year-olds where tossing a bramble ball between each other, and_ SOMEBODY _(Keefe) decided it would be a wonderful idea to power-kick it up into a tree. And not just any tree—a 50ft tall tree._

 _From bellow him, Keefe shrugged. "Well, you got to manifest as a telepath while I got stuck being an empath," he countered back. "As you can see pal, life's not fair." "Empathy's a cool ability," Fitz reasoned as he climbed up another branch. "Not when you share the ability with a dad like mine," Keefe muttered in response and although he heard him, he had to give him that one. Fitz himself had been thrilled when he realized he shared the same ability with his own father, but could definitely understand why Keefe was not exactly enthralled by the idea of sharing one with his own._

 _"You got it yet?" Keefe called up to him. Fitz rolled his eyes. "Hold on, I'm almost there," he called back down. "Okay, cause you're taking a heck of a long time," Keefe added. Fitz glared downwards. "Would you like to come up here and retrieve it yourself?" He offered sarcastically. No reply. "That's what I thought," Fitz mumbled and continued to climb. "I heard that," Keefe stated unhelpfully from below. "Good!" Fitz called back down and chuckled to himself, shaking his head as he finally reached the bramble ball. Grinning victoriously, he quickly unstuck it from the branches._

 _Arching his body, he yelled down to his friend. "Okay Keefe, I'm gonna throw it down, get ready!" Fitz told him. He didn't get a reply, so he just assumed he heard him and expertly threw the ball down between the branches. There was silence heard for a few moments before a thud was audible. "...OW, MAN!" Keefe's shout of annoyance was heard soon afterwards, and Fitz had to clamp a hand to his mouth in order to smother the immense amount of laughter that was trying to escape his lips. "Sorry," he managed to spit out, before laughing outrageously. "But I did warn you!"_

 _Keefe glared up at him. "Yeah, well I didn't get it!" He hollered back. "Not my problem!" Fitz replied, starting to climb back down. Keefe just grumble sunder his breath and tucked the ball under his arm. "Just hurry up, will ya? Your mom said that she made mallowmelt!" He rushed him, and Fitz could pretty much feel Keefe's eager from 35ft above. "Okay, okay I'm coming," he said with a chuckle, grabbing onto the branch his feet were on and literally flipping himself down to the next one. "Just hold on a few minutes."_

 _It took Fitz a couple seconds to process what he had just done. He looked down at Keefe, who was now in sight and had also seen the little trick he unintentionally pulled off, and looked back at him wit wide eyes. "Dude—you did NOT tell me you could do that," he said after a while. "Uh, that's because I didn't know I could do that," he countered back as he continued to climb down, though he stopped abruptly when he heard a creak as he stepped down- a creak of a branch._

 _"That was some ninja stuff right there man. Not gonna lie," Keefe said, as he started to pace back and forth. "Uh, Keefe," Fitz said nervously as the branch he was standing on started to bend a little too far. "I don't understand. I just don't understand," Keefe started to ramble, "like, when on earth did you learn to do that? Or was it just instinctive? I don't exactly how that could be instinctive to a person, but if it actually is then man I wish I could do that myself..." *SNAP* '...Oh no..." Fitz thought to himself. "I mean, where in the—"_

 _"KEEFE!" Fitz cut him off with a frantic yell. "—What?" Keefe asked, looking up. But his eyes widened completely once he saw Fitz yelling in the midst of a free fall. "CRAP!" He swore in panic and ran towards where Fitz was falling. "DON'T WORRY, MAN! I GOTCHA!" Keefe yelled up to Fitz, spreading his arms open, ready to catch him—only to grunt as Fitz's body collided with his own, the two landing on the ground in a crumpled pile with Fitz on top of Keefe. So much for_ catching _him..._

 _Both boys groaned in pain. "...Well that certainly didn't go as planned," Keefe commented after a while. Fitz looked down at him and smiled. Keefe smiled too. Then they both bursts into a fit of laughter. "Good lord, that was amazing!" Keefe said, between bouts of laughter. Fitz shook his head as he chuckled. "Only with you, Keefe. Only with you," he said with a smile on his face. Keefe smirked at him. "Well obviously, because I'm just that magnificently amazing to be with," he said smugly. Fitz laughed again and rolled off oh him. "Cmon," he said, extending a hand for Keefe to take, as he stood himself up. "We have some mallowmelt waiting for us."_

 _-End of Flashback-_

Keefe had no idea that he was extending his arm out until he felt he weight of gravity pushing down on it after awhile. He looked at his hand– poised and prepared, ready to grab a hand that wasn't there; a hand he would possibly never feel-or see- again.

 **Yeah I know: not only are we gonna have to wait for action but now she went and made us all depressed!" Sorry guys! It's kinda what i do. *Shrugs innocently* **not***

 **Listen, I know I promised some sophitz fluffiness, and I promise you, it will come in the next chapter! But as you can see I went a bit (a lot) overboard with this one because their broship just goals and, ugh- Okay: all I'm gonna say is, I'm sorry I promised something that didn't come write as soon as planned and I'll try to make it up to you gus with extra sophitz fluffiness, okay?**

 **And I promise it will be worth it!**

 **-Someonewhodoesntcare**


	7. Chapter 7: Reminiscence (part 3)

**Heya guys! Im not dead, and I'm really sorry for not updating sooner, but I just got my braces on last week on the top row, and I'm currently basking in my self-ugliness. But that's no reason or excuse for me to stop updating so I apologize for that. To be frank, I actually had a bit of writer's block as I'm pretty sure you all have realized that I am absolute shit when it comes to summing things up, so I apologize beforehand if the ending seems a bit rushed because to be perfectly honest, I had no idea what I was doing when I wrote that, so yeah :)**

 **Also, I should probably inform you- or better yet;**

 **WARNING:**

 **MAJOR. SOPHITZ. FLUFF. AHEAD.**

 **Yeah guys, I wasn't lying. This flashback will be full of sophitz bonding time ;) Hope you enjoy!**

Sophie was pacing: That was all she felt like she could do these days. Or at least all she had the power to do. The Black Swan still forbid Sophie to go look for Fitz, and the idea of running off in the night to go search for him herself was getting increasingly more tempting with each passing hour. But either way, she knew she couldn't do that to the others. She could only imagine the anger on Keefe, Biana, and Dex's faces if they realized she went out on her own without them. If one of them had left without her, she'd be angry too. It just wouldn't be fair to them.

Sophie finally convinced herself to stop pacing before her feet fell off. She plopped down onto the nearest chair in the room and sighed. Fitz. The name itself made her eyes water with tears. She missed him so much. She could remember all those nights when she had desperately tried to reach out to him telepathically after his announced death- the hope she felt overtime she did so, the need she felt for him to reply. But she could never find his mind. She has yet to figure out how he did so, but she's not mad at him for not reaching out to them. If she were in his position, she would've done the same.

A stray tear fell down Sophie's cheek and she wiped it away, not realizing that her eyes have been watering until now. "Where are you…." She said, her voice barely above a whisper, as her mind starts to indulge with memories of her and Fitz.

 _-Flashback-_

 _"It's your turn."_

 _"My turn? I thought it was your turn?"_

 _"Nice try Fitz, but you can't get out of this one. Your turn to answer now."_

 _"…I'm still pretty sure it was you're turn."_

 _"Fitz!"_

 _"Ugh—fine."_

 _Sophie giggled at the playful frown on Fitz's face. The two were currently at Havenfield in her room, doing some telepathy exercises that Tiergan had assigned them for the summer. They each had a set of large, square-like flash cards which contained different questions they needed to ask each other and answer, kind of like twenty questions. The ones they had done so far were personal ones about themselves, so there was no doubt that all of them were like that. Tiergan's goal with this was probably to try and get them to know each other better._

 _"Relax, maybe this one won't be so bad," Sophie tried to reassure him. Fitz only huffed. "Sure, it won't," he muttered skeptically. Sophie smiled and read her card. "See, I told you it wouldn't be so bad; it says, 'what is your biggest pet peeve'." When Fitz sent her a confused look, she quickly corrected herself. "What is your biggest annoyance." Realization hit the boy's face and thought about it for a moment, before smirking and saying, "I'm not allowed to say Biana, am I?" Sophie slapped him on the shoulder with the card and he laughed. "I'm kidding," he chuckled, "I love my sister. Hmm, let's see…. Okay, one of them is definitely when people call me perfect," he said, much to Sophie's confusion._

 _"You don't like being called perfect?" she asked. "I hate it," Fitz said, like the entire idea was a sickness itself. "Why? I mean, I would think that being called perfect is a compliment," Sophie said with a shrug, but Fitz only shook his head. "Not the way other people say it," he said. "All my life it's either said mockingly, jealously, bitterly, expectingly, generally like it's some kind of fact or something, or praisingly. The last one may not sound so bad, but it is, trust me. That just means more high expectations. Everyone expects me to be this golden boy that I'm not. If I make one mistake, I never hear the end of it," he sighed and Sophie looked at him sympathetically. All this time she thought that Fitz liked being called perfect when really it was just stressing him out. She could relate all too well._

 _Sophie shuffled closer to him and offered him a smile. "Well, if it makes you feel any better, there's no high expectations from me," she said and Fitz smiled back at her. "That helps more than you know," he says, flashing her that movie star smile and Sophie's heart flutters at his words: well his words and his smile. Then, he grinned cheekily at her. "Now it's your turn," he said in a sing-song tone and Sophie groaned in exasperation much to the amusement of Fitz, who laughed at her reaction._

 _Rolling her eyes, Sophie huffed and crossed her arms. "Fine," she said and Fitz picked up his card. "Oh, this one's for both of us; 'describe each other in one word:'"_

 _"Cute,"_

 _"Pretty,"_

 _Sophie's face flushed bright red while Fitz smirked at her. "You really think I'm cute?" He asked her with a grin, laughing when her face flushed even brighter. Sophie desperately tried to calm her racing heart. "You think I'm pretty," she countered. Fitz flushed a tiny bit but it quickly went away and he shrugged. "Yeah, but that's a given," he said like it was obvious, making Sophie blush even more. "Y-yeah, well it's a given with you too," she retorted, cursing herself for stammering, "you're Fitz Vacker—everybody finds you cute."_

 _Fitz shrugged a little. "I guess," he said, "but it's better coming from you." This made Sophie's cheeks burn even redder than before. It also made Fitz smirk even wider than before. "Shut up..." Sophie muttered, pathetically trying to hide behind her hair. Fitz raised his arms up in defence with a chuckle. "I didn't say anything," he told her._

 _Sophie decided to change the subject quickly before her whole entire head became scarlet red. "Okay, next question!" She said hurriedly, shoving a card from Fitz's pile into his hands. She didn't even care if it was technically his turn to answer—she just wanted to stop blushing. Fitz chuckled as he read it aloud; "Name one thing that disgusts you." "Nyros," Sophie answered immediately, "I hate nyros." She shivered a little, picturing the hideous looking bug they had in the Elvin World that looked like a black caterpillar with single hairs sticking up all over it, probably a thousand little feet, and two hooks spiked on the end of it. It was a truly disgusting sight to see, and sometimes, when or if they would crawl into her bedroom, Sophie had to get Grady or Edaline to get them out._

 _Fitz looked down a little ways away from her knee, which was resting on the bed. "You mean like that one right there?" He asked, pointing nonchalantly towards it. Sophie's eyes widened, and when she caught sight of a small black figure on her bed, that was all she needed to have her screaming, waving her arms frantically as she tumbled off the side of the bed. "Ew, ew, EWW!" Sophie exclaimed, backing away from her bed as far as possible. It was only when she heard an immense amount of laughter coming from Fitz that she realized something was wrong._

 _Cautiously, Sophie crawled back towards her bed and looked around for the bug she was sure was at her knee a few seconds ago—only to see the "nyro" in Fitz's hand and soon discover that it wasn't a nyro at all, but really a black feather that Fitz had twisted up to make it seem like it was a nyro. Sophie felt her cheeks flush red again and she glared as Fitz nearly doubled over in laughter. "Fitz Vacker, I will so get you back for this," she threatened, gritting her teeth in annoyance._

 _Once he calmed down from his wild amount of laughter, Fitz looked at her with a smug grin. "And how exactly are you going to do that?" He asked her confidently. Sophie wasn't about to admit to him that she actually had nothing in mind, so she kept the stern look on her face. Suddenly, a random idea occurred to her, and she decided to take her chances with the odds. Smirking deviously, Sophie lunged at Fitz before he had a chance to react, and started to tickle him mercilessly._

 _As she had hoped, Fitz turned out to be extremely ticklish, as the boy reacted the minute her fingers touched his sides. When she tickled him, the most melodious sound she had ever heard came from Fitz's lips and she had to bite her cheek in order not to sigh at the sound of it. 'Even his laughing sounds perfect,' she thought. Sophie grinned and soon found herself chuckling along with him as Fitz's laughter was so contagious. It's was so— mesmerizing. She swore that she could listen to his laugh on repeat and never get tired of hearing it. She decided right then and there that it was her favourite sound she had ever heard by far._

 _Fitz was laughing harder and harder by the second. "Have... mercyyyy..." he begged between his laughter and Sophie smiled and shook her head. "Nooo... ssstopp... pl-pleaaase..." Fitz begged again and at one point, laughed so hard that he fell backwards onto the bed, bringing Sophie with him. The two rolled around on it briefly, coming to a stop with Sophie above Fitz. Sophie could feel a blush working to her cheeks—after all, they were in somewhat of a- suggestive position—but the sound of Fitz's chuckles pulled her from her embarrassing thoughts and she grinned, continuing to tickle him._

 _Fitz laughed even harder (if possible) and finally grabbed ahold of her wrists. "Sophie, Sophie, stop, please," he pleaded between heavy breaths, a large grin spread onto his face as he chuckled softly. "I'll do anything." Sophie smirked (well, tried to at least) and pretended to think about it. "Hmm..." she said, tapping her chin. "Anything at all?" She asked and tickled him a little more just in case. The teal eyed boy immediately laughed again and nodded vigorously, frantically trying to catch ahold of her wrists. "Yes, anything!" He exclaimed and sighed in relief when Sophie came to a stop. She smiled down at him. "Okay," she said, her smile turning into a smirk. "Say 'Sophie Foster is the Best'." She knew it wasn't the best or a very unique deal but she really couldn't think of anything else._

 _Fitz rose an eyebrow. "Well that's easy," he said, much to her surprise. He cleared his throat and proceeded to say, "Sophie Foster is, by far, the Best," before adding, "obviously," and winking at her. Sophie blushed slightly. "Really?" She asked shyly, tucking a stray piece of hair behind her ear. Fitz snorted. "Duh," he said like it was obvious—which Sophie could not possibly imagine why he would think it was—and said, "what other person your age is as talented, smart, brave and thoughtful like you? You're like the coolest elf I know." Sophie blushed madly and tried her best to hide it from him until Fitz leaned his head up and looked side to side as if he was looking out for someone, before he whispered in her ear, "just don't tell Keefe I said that."_

 _Sophie laughed and Fitz grinned up at her. "Wow," he said, grinning wider, "who knew little miss Sophie Foster had a bit of a dark side?" Sophie blushes slightly as he castes her a teasing look. Trying to fight of her slight embarrassment, she shrugged and sat back. "Who knows? Maybe it was always in there, just waiting to come out," She said with a smile._

 _Fitz sat up as well and smiled back at her. "Well at least it shows people not to mess with you. I certainly learned my lesson," he said and Sophie giggled. As Fitz laughed along with her, Sophie looked at him and smiled appreciatively. 'How did I ever live without him?' Sophie wondered to herself as she and Fitz continued their telepathy lessons._

 _-End of Flashback-_

It was a question Sophie had wondered about for a long time. It wasn't until now that she realized she felt the same that she did when she was living in the human world—lonely, empty, lost, and sad.

In fact, everywhere she went, she saw empty, lost, and sad faces. Dex had been mega-tinkering ever since the recent news about Fitz, his form of coping with heavy topics, Biana had been gathering every single photo she had of Fitz and herself, or just of Fitz in general, and was crying herself to sleep looking at them every night. And Keefe; Keefe was the one Sophie was most worried about.

He almost never left his post in front of the woods. He refused to eat, not even when Della or Squall left some food there for him, he didn't talk or interact with anybody. The only times he would leave his spot is when he needed to go to bed, only because the Black Swan didn't allow him to sleep outside—and even then, he wasn't sleeping. At all. They got an update from Dex every day.

Anytime Sophie would try to transmit to him or read his mind, she would hear any of his thoughts for there wasn't any to hear—and all she say were tons and tons of memories of Fitz. Seeing his smiling face in the memories would be too much for Sophie and she retreated every time.

These were all signs that something needed to happen—and that it needed to happen now—and by what she was observing, it seemed like she was the only one who had a state of mind to do so. Without a second thought, Sophie raced down from her tree house and marched her way towards the main room where she was sure the Black Swan would be. Enough was enough—people were hurting, and if they weren't going to let them do anything about it, Sophie would grill them until they did something about it themselves.

Sophie stormed into the room, where it appeared that the Black Swan were having a staff meeting. Every head raised and turned to look at her, and Mr. Forkle drifted from the group. "Sophie—" he started, but Sophie cut him off by raising her hand. "Save it," she said angrily. She was just about done sitting around and doing nothing but waiting. It was time to take action.

"We need to go find Fitz," she declared with her head held high. The Black Swan all shared a look before Granite slowly raised himself out of his seat and approached her. "Sophie, I know he's really important to y– " but Sophie shook her head firmly. "No," she said, "I'm sick and tired of doing nothing while we know Fitz is alive and out there on his own. I don't care if you think he's dangerous, no one cares, he's our friend and we want to do something now—" Sophie stopped herself short when a distant cry of triumph broke out in the air. She and the Black Swan both turned their heads as Dex stormed into the room, Biana close behind him.

"Dex...?" Sophie said, tilting her head at her best friend, who was currently bending over and breathing heavily like he had just ran a 5k marathon. Dex looked up at them, grinning at all of them widely. "I did it! I finished it!" He exclaims proudly, and Sophie raised her eyebrows, hoping that he was talking about what she thought he was talking about.

She wasn't disappointed. Dex raised up his newly-fixed invention, a confirming smile on his face. "The Twiggler is complete."

 **So, how was it? I hope y'all enjoyed that bit of Sophitz fluff there ;) I promise you all from here on out there's gonna be more action! In fact, I can't wait to start typing up that new chapter! Soooo many ideas, my brain's about to explode! Hehehee**

 **Anyways, I hope you liked this and I'll try to update more frequently!**

 **-Someonewhodoesntcare**


	8. Chapter 8: Exillium

**Hey guys! Im baaaack! Sorry about the long wait…. I have been a little busy with school and stuff and my schoolwork isn't hard or anything, it's just hella annoying cause there's a lot of it. But now I'm back with a brand new chapter, containing action like I'd promised! Hope you guys enjoy!**

 **Also forewarning: I changed a few things that happened in the book, since some of these scenes are actually in the book** ** _Neverseen_** **themselves. Also, I pretty much paraphrased every single conversation in here thats also in the book, so bear with me now, okay? Great.**

 **ON WITH THE STORY!**

For such a large accomplishment, Dex was expecting a little bit more of a reaction than just utter silence. Perhaps some grins, or possibly some cheers would suffice. A "congratulations Dex!" A couple of "I knew you could do it's", maybe even a "you're a genius!" Would have been nice: but nope—silence was his show of gratitude instead. Dex thought that maybe they were so shocked that they were "shocked silent". That they were so awestruck of his fantastic work, they didn't even know what to say—yeah, he'll go with that.

Luckily for him, Sophie spoke up, a wide grin on her face. "Dex, that's amazing!" She cried out happily, making Dex beam at her praise. To please her even more, Dex promptly added, "and guess what? I tweaked it so that not only we'll be able to find out info on that Neverseen guy, but Fitz as well!" At that, Biana jumped into his arms, almost tackling him in a hug as she wrapped her arms around his neck. "Oh Dex, that's brilliant!" She exclaimed, giving him a grateful smile. Dex tried his very hardest not to blush as he hugged Biana back and thanked her. Sophie was so ecstatic, she was pacing. "Yes! We can use it to find Fitz right now!" She exclaimed, unable to control her excitement. Thanks to Dex, they would finally be able to see Fitz again!

Or maybe not.

"No," a firm voice came from behind them, halting their excitement. Sophie recognized it instantly and whipped her head around so fast, Dex was surprised it didn't snap right there and then. "What?" She snapped harshly at them, causing both Biana and Dex to take one big step back from what they'd like to call "the angry Sophie zone"—aka, a very dangerous, sporadic, not to be trifled with Sophie. Even some of the Black Swan shivered at her tone. But not Mr. Forkle. "Mr. Dizznee, you were only supposed to make that device for one purpose—figuring out that Neverseen agent," he scolded Dex sternly. Dex only gave him an unbelieving look. "... Are you kidding? Please tell me your joking," he said hopefully. When all he received was a deadpan look, Dex sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "Okay, I guess your not," he said sheepishly. "But haven't you seen how this is affecting everybody? Biana's been crying every night, Sophie's distraught and obviously worried and Keefe—" he cut himself off there, closing his eyes and sighing deeply. Then he opened them up to slits, directing his glare right at the adults. "I suggest we find him before one of your assets becomes broken," he said calmly.

Both Sophie and Biana gasped at that, and murmurs were heard upon the collective. "Dex..." Sophie uttered out, not believing what she was hearing, "is he really...?" Dex looked at her with sullen eyes. "I think he might be getting close," he admitted reluctantly. "Each day he just becomes more and more—gone." Sophie took in a shaky breath before glaring at the Black Swan herself. "We need. To find. Fitz," she said, her voice deep from trying to control her anger. "NOW."

Mr. Forkle sighed. "It's not that simple, Soph—" he started to say until the doors suddenly burst Ed open, revealing a panting, wide-eyed Keefe. Sophie nearly gaped at his appearance. His clothes were messy and obviously not cared about how they were presented, his hair was disheveled (that was one of the biggest shocks), and his face— Sophie felt her heart drop to her stomach when she saw his face. Despite his newfound distraught expression (his first expression in a couple of weeks), she'd never seen a person's face appear so hollow:

Except when they were broken.

The sight filled fear into her body. She was scared—no, horrified—at what may happen to him if they didn't find Fitz soon. Keefe didn't seem to acknowledge the fact that all eyes were on him—his eyes were on Mr. Forkle and Mr. Forkle only. A single word escaped from his quivering lips:

"Please."

Sophie decided that if Mr. Forkle refused to that, he really was a heartless old man. The way Keefe had said the word was filled with so much– so much—pain. And though his tone was quiet and as hollow as his face, you could easily detect the pure agony that was laced around it. Sophie wasn't a empath, but it was almost like he was purposely radiating his feelings on to everyone else—she could tell that they were feeling what's he was feeling—what he was feeling. Keefe was hurt: he looked broken; sounded broken, probably felt broken; but beneath that, beneath all the pain, the emptiness, the heartache, even the tiny piece of washed up hope, there was sorrow—pure, unbridled, gut-wrenching sorrow—and determination. The empath used his sorrow to feed into his determination to find his best friend. Keefe wasn't ready to give up. He may have a terrible father and a mother he lost to the Neverseen, but he was, by no means, going to lose Fitz to them too. He was going to fight—for the both of them:

And he was gonna put up one heck of a fight indeed.

This is what Mr. Forkle saw when he heard the one word Keefe had spoken in over a week—and it was this (and the fact that the children were more stubborn than verminions) that finally made him realize this was what they had to do:

On one condition.

••••••

With the help of the twiggler and the evader, the gang were able to find a couple of psionpaths that be attended Exillium. Sophie and the rest agreed to prioritize the Neverseen member first, but as soon as they were done funding info about him, Sophie would go straight to the twiggler to see if the council his any information about Fitz. She knew that he wanted to know more than anything who he was. She'd felt that before. And though he was currently ignoring her transmissions, Sophie knew that if she found info to share with him, it could prompt Fitz to come back. "One of them is named Ruy. That sort of looks like him," Biana said, pointing to the menacing looking guy who had a loooooot of reasons for being sent to Exillium. Sophie agreed. No wonder they almost forbade the ability of psionpathy. This dude was definitely bad news. "Perhaps you can all ask about him when you go," a voice came from behind them and they turned to see Granite holding their Exillium outfits. Sophie sighed. Form what she'd heard, Exillium was definitely not sunshine and rainbows and she wants too excited on going there. But the faster they got Exillium over with, the faster they could move on to finding Fitz. The thought have Sophie more confidence and motivation about this new school.

Biana offered to be the first to try the uniform on and when she came back, she was nearly unrecognizable (A/N: I altered some of the necessities and design of the uniform so bear with me because that's just how I offing ally imagined it. It was the whole "half mask" thing that threw me off). She was wearing black pants and a long sleeved black shirt under a light grey vest that had a couple of chains hooked on to each side. The vest had a good at the back which Biana had upon her head and was not only sporting steel-toed boots but was also wearing a black mask that only covered one eye. It had slight silver streaks designed on it and even though it was only covering one eye, it had a intimidating perk to it that made Biana almost unrecognizable even without the hood up.

Sophie couldn't believe she was thinking this, but she might actually miss the gowns and dresses.

The first one to comment was Keefe. "Nuh-uh. No freaking way am I wearing that," he said, pointing at the outfit. Sophie sighed. She supposed it wasn't too bad—and if she had to wear it than so did her. "Keefe it's their uniform. You have to wear it," she told him with a roll of her eyes. Keefe looked at her strangely. "Huh? Oh no, I'm not talking about the entire uniform; I'm talking about the hood," he said, pointing at it. "How are people supposed to bask in the awesomeness of my hair gene that ugly thing is covering it up?" Sophie shook her head but she had to suppress a smile. It was a relief that Keefe was turning back into his old self. Dex just observed it and shrugged. "I don't think it's too bad. Kinda cool, actually," he said simply. Biana pulled down her good, quickly fumbling to doc her hair. "That's because you're not wearing it," she told Dex. "It's pretty hot—and the boots are heavy too." The brunette sighed and turned to Granite. "Please tell me the hoods aren't actually necessary to wear," she pleaded with him.

Granite shrugged. "The masks are, but the hoods aren't," he said, much to the relief of everyone, especially Keefe. "But most of the Waywards keep them on for anonymous purposes. Though the masks do affect your appearance, most of them don't think it's enough. They usually find those who don't wear the hoods to be weaklings," he told them. Keefe snorted. "Cool. I'm still lot wearing that hood," he said with his arms crossed. "Actually, I think when we're doing the lessons we should keep our hoods up—you know, just to blend in," Dex suggested. "Then we can put them down when there's leisure time." "If there's leisure time," Granite mumbled under his breath but only Sophie and Keefe heard him. Keefe crossed his arms, still not happy with the idea, but when everyone else agreed he groaned. "Fine," he said, rolling his eyes. "But the minute I feel a singe hair move out of place, I'm ripping this thing off."

.

After Sophie, Keefe and Dex got dressed into their uniforms, Mr. Forkle handed them each a black leaping crystal, telling them that's the way they're going to get to Exillium. "Are you four ready to do this?" He asked them, giving each of the kids a serious look. Keefe was the first to nod. "Let's do this thing," he said confidently, followed by murmurs of agreement from Dex, Biana, and Sophie. Sharing a look with the collective, Mr. Forkle sighed and ordered them to put the crystals around their necks. "Stay safe," he said before stepping back a ways away from them. Sophie, Dex, Biana, and Keefe all pointed their crystals towards the light and in a flash they were gone.

* * *

 **OOOH, CLIFFY! So how'd you guys like this chapter? It was good I hope! Again, I apologize for the long wait, I'll try and be more hasty next time! Ugh, grade 10's a killer… the work man, I just can't though.**

 **But anyways yeah, please post your comments, because I absolutely love your feedback and I'll try and update soon!**

 **…..**

 **HA! Just kidding! XD It ain't over yet ;)**

* * *

The four landed in some sort of dark forest. Keefe scoffed as he looked around the sight. "This is exillium?" He commented, furrowing his eyebrows unimpressedly. He then looked over to Sophie and smirked. "Budget cuts much?" Sophie rolled her eyes but she could've sworn she heard very soft chuckling in the distance. It was low and barely audible but audible enough in the dead silence of the forest. It also stopped immediately as if the person thought they were going to get in trouble if they did laugh. That's when Sophie realized. "They're here," she whispered, causing everyone to look her way.

"Indeed we are." Sophie screamed as she suddenly found herself flipped upside down, dangling in the air with a rope tied around her one foot. She looked around and saw her friends also struggling in the same position as well. They were all hanging from a metal arch. "Welcome to the trials: this here will determine which group you shall be placed into," a voice said from behind her—or at Leary she thought was behind her. Sophie wrenched her head over as best she could towards where the voice was coming and saw three tall figures, all with their hoods down of different colours. One had red, another purple, and the last one blue. Behind them were a bunch of smaller figures, who also had their hoods down. Sophie assumed these people must be the coaches and the Waywards. Huffing out an annoyed breath at their weird methods of placement (along with having all the other waywards to surely watch her fail), Sophie wrenched her body around, trying to get ahold of the knot on her foot. "Anyone else having a little bit of trouble with this?" She called out, hopefully not being the only one. "This knot is like impossible to break." "Almost got it," Keefe announced, expertly untying the knot with his fingers. How, Sophie didn't know, as this knot was extra tangled, but Keefe managed to do it anyways. Loosening the last loop with plenty of mumbled 'ow's' along the way, Keefe shouted, "YOU THINK YOU CAN HOLD M—" unfortunately, a loud _RRRIIIIP!_ cut him off and the boy went tumbling to the ground, spewing out many words that would surely get him months of detention in foxfire, before hitting the ground with a _CRUNCH!_ She turned her head to see if he was okay, only to find him grumbling in pain on the ground. "...Graceful," one of the coaches commented snarkily and Sophie would've scowled at them if she knew which one had said it. "You okay Keefe?" she called down to him. Keefe rubbed his head in pain. "I've been better," he admitted gruffly. "Guess I forgot to brace myself for the landing." "He also forgot his pants too," the blue cloaked figure stated dryly, much to the amusement of the other waywards. Sophie glanced over to his top and saw that Keefe had indeed left his now ripped black pants behind—she had no idea how he even managed to do that.

"Looks like he left his dignity behind with it too," one of the waywards commented. The rest of the waywards started to laugh, each taking turns poking and making fun of Keefe; except one. Sophie noticed that there was one wayward who took a step forward, as if they were about to help Keefe, but went back when one of the coaches hissed something at them. Sophie wondered why they would even want to help in the first place. According to the Black Swan, people were very rough around here. They weren't the types to be trusting or thoughtful to one another. In fact, resentment was basically hanging in the air—and yet this wayward, despite not knowing Keefe, still tried to help—why?

"SILENCE!" The blue cloaked instructor commanded. "One has freed himself—can the same be said for the others?" "I can in a second!" Sophie's thoughts were interrupted by Dex's exclamation, and she watched with horror as she thought her adoptive cousin was going to fall to the ground just like Keefe had before—only to stop in mid air and slowly turn himself upright, floating calmly to the ground. 'Levitating,' Sophie realized in her head. "Why didn't I think of that..." Keefe grumbled as Dex landed gracefully beside him. He snorted. "I can think of a few reasons," he replied, causing Keefe to glare at him playfully. Sophie Dex toss a something to the ground and realized he'd made a makeshift knife out of the chains to cut the rope. One of the coaches, the red one, nods approvingly. "Very well done," he compliments. "It's a shame that you won't be in my division." He then looked up at Biana and Sophie, still dangling from the rope. "And then there were two..." he murmured, arms crossed over his chest. "TRY ONE!" Biana exclaimed. She tossed her body back and forth, causing the rope to fray until it finally snapped. She tried using levitation like Dex but her concentration only got her so far. Falling again once more, she expertly flipped her self down to the ground.

As Keefe muttered something about 'why everyone else had landed on their feet', Sophie was still having trouble. There was no way she was gonna be able to undo that knot and she wasn't resourceful enough like Dex to find a way to cut through it. She tried swinging herself back and forth like Biana, but that proved to be immensely useless and her rope just refused to fray. She suddenly found Keefe levitating beside her, going over to help her with the knot. "NO ASSISTANCE ALLOWED!" All of the coaches hollered at once. "NO HELPING! SHE MUST DO IT ON HER OWN!" "I'm not just gonna leave her dangling up here!" Keefe argued but Sophie touched his shoulder. "It's okay—I have a plan," she told him. She doubted it was a good plan—and although she knew Keefe was just trying to help, she definitely did not want to be the only one who needed help getting down. Reluctantly, Keefe floated back to the ground and Sophie took off her Black Swan pendant, remembering how well it worked for Biana. 'It's now or never,' she thought to herself, sighing out a breath of determination. She held the pendant by the Swan design, positioning the smooth gem to reflect a ray of the orange sunrise light. She aimed it at the rope that was connected to the metal arc— maybe not the best idea. All at once, the branch erupted into white hot flames and Sophie found herself wriggling around in an attempt to free herself, the flames searingly burning her leg. She did, but the pain made it impossible for her to be able to levitate. She braced herself for the fall but a sudden and gigantic wave of water threw her backwards. Distantly, she saw the large wave of water start to take the fire out but when she turned her head, her eyes widened: she was heading straight towards a tree.

Sophie yelled, bracing herself for the pain that was sure to come, only to feel herself cradled inside someone's arms. Looking up, she was surprised to see that she was in the arms of one of the waywards, who was looking back down at her intently. Sophie looked back at the dying commotion, which was barely in sight from where they were—in the tree she was about to cash into to be more specific. It was then that she realized the boy had jumped over to catch her and landed perched in the tree with her in his arms. Sophie knew that elves could jump very far—she just didn't know that they could jump this far...

A large wave of fatigue suddenly hit her and Sophie realized she must still be in shock. She barely processed the boy jumping back towards the coaches before passing out.

* * *

"Leave it to you to nearly burn Exillium down on the first day." Sophie blinked her eyes open, furrowing her eyebrows as she looked around. She seemed to be in some kind of medic room, lying on a bed. She turned her head and saw that Keefe was also sitting on a bed similar to hers. "What happened?" She asked, sitting on the side of the bed. Keefe filled her in, saying how everyone thought she might've been a pyrokinetic because of what she did. "The there was this girl—yo you should've seen her, she like summoned a huge wave and put the entire thing out!" Keefe, the weird medicine he was on having a slightly weird affect on him, started making noises and imitating the wave with his arms. Sophie cocked her head to the side. "What happened after the wave? Where did I go?" She asked him. Her memory was still a little foggy. Keefe widened his eyes when she mentioned that. "Oh yeah! The wave hit you and you went flying back—nice job giving us all another heart attack by the way—and we all started to panic at once. But before any of the coaches could even do anything, this one wayward up and jumped to you—like literally, jumped! He went soaring—I couldn't believe how he could jump so far! Obviously everyone else was surprised too because the coaches just stared at him gobsmacked—it was pretty funny," he giggled a bit to himself. "Then he came back a few seconds later with you passed out in his arms. Dex, Biana, and I tried to come and get you but the purple coach basically ripped you out of his arms and walked to the infirmary, some other dude dragging me along," he explained.

Sophie started to remember the boy and the strange way he'd looked at her. Who was he? Even with the one-eye mask, he still seemed unrecognizable—and despite the lengthy jump he'd made at an incredible speed, his hood still maintained on his head. Sophie knew she shouldn't be, but she was now extra curious about finding out who this person was. "Both of those waywards should've been expelled," a new voice commented as Sophie turned around to see the medic in the boobrie mask that Keefe had mentioned earlier. Speaking of her friend, his face lit up when he saw the man approach the two. "Hey, boobrie dude!" Keefe acknowledged him with the nickname he'd made for the man, who refused to share his name. The man sighed. "Did you bring me anymore of that awesome sauce?" He asked, bouncing on the bed giddily. Sophie really hoped the man would say no.

Fortunately for her, 'boobrie dude' just shook his head and tsk'd at Keefe before ordering the two of them to get up. "What do you mean they should've been expelled?" Sophie asked curiously. Boobrie dude gave her a serious look. "Waywards here aren't supposed to help each other—or use their abilities. The hydrokinetic would've gotten ejected for that if it wasn't for the fact that she basically saved the whole campus from your mistake," he paused before adding, "that and the shade." Sophie arched an eyebrow, choosing to ignore his emphasis on the word 'your'. "The shade?" She inquired. "What's a shade?" Keefe snorted from behind her. "Only the creepiest people ever," he remarked. Although the masked man said nothing, he seemed to agree with Keefe as he shuddered a bit. "The shade," he said, speaking the word as if it's a curse itself. "One of the worst Waywards here—he's extremely power and extremely protective of the hydrokinetic. If you want to stay out of trouble here, you'll stay away from him. He probably won't take too kindly to you almost having his sister ejected from the school," he told her. Sophie tried not to gulp in nervousness before asking, "what about the other one?"

At the boobrie dude's confused look, she was quick to add, "the boy who caught me." Though decked out in a very elaborate mask, Sophie could still see the man's eyes widen. He was shuddering as if he'd remembered a very bad memory. "You mean the telepath," he said quietly after a while. Sophie's eyebrows rose slightly. He was a telepath? As if he'd read her mind, the boobrie dude continued to say, "that's not his only ability." At Sophie intent and curious look, he sighed. "Don't expect more out of me, because I can't tell you. We don't know what it is." Sophie furrowed her eyebrows in confusion. "How could you not know?" She asked. The man shrugged. "He wouldn't tell us. And even though he tried to just show us it, we'd never really seen anything like it—we don't know what to call it, so we didn't call it anything," he explained. Wracking her memory, Sophie looked at the ability pins (which everyone apparently had to wear) on the vest of the mystery boy, and saw that the man was right: beside the telepath pin, there was a metal question mark.

"He doesn't talk to anyone here—in fact, he barely talks, period. He's also also just about as dangerous as the shade—possibly more," the boobrie dude drew in a deep breath before letting it out. "Whatever you do, DON'T. APPROACH HIM." With that, the man led them out of the room, Sophie and Keefe sharing a glance. Whoever these Waywards were, they were NOT to be messed with.

Unfortunately for herself, Sophie had a bad little habit of trifling into other people's business.

The two were led outside to where they were going to be placed in their divisions. Keefe ended up with the blue coach in the right hemisphere while Sophie ended up with the purple coach in the middle hemisphere: Ambi, they called it. Sophie tried to ignore the withering glares she was receiving from the rest of the Waywards in her division as she had been the reason that they were now skipping lunch. She instead focused on their pins, trying to figure out who had what power. Some of them were easy to identify. She knew a couple of them were empathy, as she recognized the same pin in Keefe's best, which was red with an open book having a small metal heart on the pages. She was pretty sure that the dark green one with a black hand with wires and circuits around it was technopathy. Others were harder to know and she had to guess. She assumed the that the tree with wind-whipped branches meant gusted and the one with a cloudy day with a body half black and half squiggly rainbow lines was a—vanisher? She couldn't know for sure. She did know one thing for sure though—that her teleportation pin was definitely her favourite. It had a starry sky background with a flying alicorn, reminding her of Silveny. The thought of the stinky yet precious animal mad Sophie feel a bit better about her whole situation. She missed the alicorn a lot. She's have to make a transmission to her soon to see how things were holding up.

As she tried to identify the other pins , her eyes caught sight of two Waywards sitting on the bench in front of her as close as they possibly could. Sophie didn't know if that meant they were dating or not, but when she caught sight of a pin with swirling waves and drops of waves on one of them, she realized this must be the hydrokinetic and the shade. Her theories were confirmed when she saw the pin on the other wayward's vest—silver with a black hand reaching from the center. If that didn't mean shade, Sophie had no idea what did. As the coaches began officially began the whole "keep yourself from being hungry" thing, Sophie began to debate whether or not she should try and thank her for saving her from the fire while the shade was with her (which, from the looks of it, seemed like that was going to be a reoccurring thing), or even approach them in general. What would the shade do? What would they hydrokinetic do? Would even talking to people get her ejected? In this school, if sure as hell seemed to be that way.

 _You need to leave._

Sophie gasped, startled by the sudden sound of a voice in her head—a voice she hadn't heard in her head for a long, long while. People turned their heads and looked at her questioningly but she downcasts her eyes, avoiding their looks even though it was already incredibly obvious that the sudden gasp in the pit of silence had came from her. She waited until people looked away from her before she replied:  
 _Fitz? You're here? Where are you?!  
_ She didn't get an answer though. Sophie tried several more transmissions but soon had to stop when the purple coach came over to here, wondering why she'd gasped so suddenly. Sophie played it off that the hunger had just hit her in an intense way. She didn't seem to believe her very much but left it alone anyways. After she'd gone a fair distance away from her tent, Sophie tried again:  
 _Fitz? Fitz?"  
_ Nothing.

Determined not to give up, Sophie tried to persuade Fitz to talk to her.  
 _Fitz, you don't need to hide anymore. We're all here for you. We all miss you so bad! You need to let us help you.  
_ When that didn't work, she tried:  
 _Look, I know you want information; we have it, okay? Dex made a device that can hack into the Council's archives and we can find out more about you! Just tell me where you are Fitz! We need you to come home—_ she sighed, _I need you to come home.  
_ At first, all she received was silence. Sophie sighed, believing she wasn't going to get an answer out of Fitz, until he replied 152 seconds later—but his answer was not the one she was hoping for.  
 _Sophie, look: you can't help me. No one can help me. So you guys need to stop trying, and LEAVE. I'm serious.  
_ After that, she didn't get anything else from him, despite the large mass of transmissions she sent him. Sophie but her lip, trying to hold in her frustration. So this was where Fitz was hiding? Exillium? How did he even find it without a the beads? Most importantly, why did he want her to leave? Was he avoiding them, _again_? Sophie refused to let that happen. They've now that she knows where Fitz is, she doesn't want him to ever feel like he needed to leave again. She wanted him back—everyone wanted him back. She needed to stay.

She just hoped Fitz would stay too.

 **…Jesus flipping christ, this was long.**

 **Listen, I'm reeeaaaaally sorry. I honestly didn't thin I wrote that much. Ugh. I have a serious problem that needs to be fixed (-_(\\)  
But anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, sorry for writing more than 5000 fucking words, excuse my language, and I hope I didn't just lose a whole lotta viewers with this crapola. But yeah, I hope you managed to enjoy at least some of it. Because lets be real: this added up all together is a piece of garbage.**

 **But whatever. *sighs* Don/t forget to review and I swear I'll try to make less lengthy chapters!**

 **-Someonewhodoesntcare (well she DOES TODAY!)**


	9. Chapter 9: A Few Revelations

**Hey peoples! Sorry for not updating in a while, school's a killer. We're currently reading Lord of the Flies, which is fine because I like that novel, it's just kind of hard because we're supposed to read it on our own, but the only thing is that I missed one day and they decided that would be the day to have an in-class reading period—of course, because I have no luck whatsoever—and yeah, I missed that so I have to catch up. Anyways, I will inform you that I do currently have the next two chapters already in the making, so you can possibly expect another update soon! (please do not quote me on that; there is a good 99.9% chance that I will be wrong) Anyways, I'll stop rambling, and get to the story now. Hope you enjoy!**

* * *

Sophie had informed everybody about her transmission with Fitz. She had tried to contact him again multiple times, but to no avail. Fitz just refused to speak to her. After sharing this information, Sophie had been bombarded with a bunch of questions that she could not answer—for example, some being, "where is he?!" Or, "Is he okay?!" And most frustratingly of all, "why is he hiding?" She had no clue why he was hiding. They weren't a threat to him, and he had to understand that he wasn't a threat to them...Or maybe he was, and they just didn't know that. Which would completely explain why he was keeping his distance. But no. Sophie shook her head firmly. She refused to believe that Fitz could actually be a threat to his own friends and family. Granted he was powerful, but so was she and she had came to terms that her friends were going to follow her on every stupid dangerous adventure she encountered whether she liked it or not, so if she had to deal with that, so did he.

Today would be their fifth day at Exillium and they still hadn't found Fitz. Mr. Forkle sighed deeply as the kids turned to him, inquiring on what to do. "Right now, you kids should focus on keeping a low profile," he told them calmly. Keefe snickered from behind her. "Yeah, uh, some of us kind of broke that rule on the first day," he said, smirking at Sophie, who blushed. Mr. Forkle sighed again, but was evidently hiding a smile. "Yes, I had presumed that our little moonlark would do so," he mused, shaking his head lightly. Sophie huffed and crossed her arms. Why was she always the one being teased? Granite stepped in, adding a few points. "Today's lesson includes sparring guys, so be careful. Especially since the other Waywards like to go rough—remember, the Coaches won't do anything about it," he warned them all. Sophie felt herself pale significantly. Sparring? She could barely walk without tripping over her own two feet. She sighed sorrowful, as she put on her one-eye mask. She had a feeling today was going to be a long day.

Before light-leaping back to Exillium, the kids themselves had established a little plan of their own; they were going to try and find Fitz among the other Waywards. It wouldn't be easy, as Granite was not lying about the students wanting to keep their identities hidden. Most of them wore hoods, especially the males, and to inspect ones eyes, you would have to get close up to them as the shade of blue was distorted by the darkness of the black hood and eye mask, so it made it incredibly difficult to tell from afar. And getting close to another Wayward was another problem in itself. The students at Exillium were keen on personal space, and anybody less than a meter away from them was risky. Also, Sophie was pretty sure she was the most hated Wayward at the school for her little stunt on the first day so that was a challenge as well. The only Wayward she had talked to, other than her own friends, was the shade, whom Sophie had also told her friends about; and even that wasn't out loud in the open. He would shadow-whisper to her, and she'd transmit back. Most of the things he told her were warnings—mostly about how to survive in this school. He had obviously been there for a long time, so Sophie trusted him—the others, not so much. Predominantly because he was a shade. But Sophie wasn't going to let any stereotype of an acquired ability blind her better judgement. And though they still haven't exchanged names yet, Sophie knew that the shade would grow to trust her too—she just needed to find a way to earn it. But before she could, she needed to ask him something first; she wanted to know if he knew about the telepath.

Now Sophie wasn't stupid—she did consider the fact that Fitz could most definitely be the mysterious telepath. But she ruled that out quickly on the second day. She had managed to find him among the other Waywards, and had transmitted to him that she wanted to talk. She was still surprised that he had actually came—they met within the forest on their break, managing to leave without being noticed. She had only just wanted to thank him for from practically saving her from another near-death situation. Secretly, she also wanted to see if the boy was Fitz, as there was a good chance that he very well might be. But, much to her surprise, the telepath had spoken even before she had a chance to speak herself:

 _•_ _Three days ago•_

 _Sophie walked through the thick forest, finally finding a clear spot among the trees to stand and talk. When she turned around, she gasped, finding that the boy was already there, looking at her intently. Or what she assumed was with intent. With the masks and the hood, it was practically impossible to tell. Despite this, Sophie studied him as best as she could, not passing up the opportunity to find Fitz. No other Wayward let her get this close, let alone agreed to talk to her. In fact, she was still struck with how lucky they were to have not been noticed while leaving. But she realized that they only had a short period of time before break would be over. In Exillium, they only had 15 minute breaks, but due to the Coaches being "particularly lazy today" (their own words, not hers), that time was doubled—and although break had just started a few minutes ago, Sophie Foster knew better than anyone that time was never on your side when you wanted it to be. So she had to be quick._

 _She thought she was eyeing him inconspicuously—after all, they had just been here for a few seconds—but when the Telepath seemingly smiled slightly and let out a soft chuckle, her mind told her something else. "Trying to see if I'm your lost friend, huh Sophie?" He spoke, his voice low and monotoned, which held barely any emotion in it. Sophie momentarily found herself overcome with shock: she was not expecting him to even make a noise, let alone speak—plus he knew her name. How did he know her name? Actually feeling grateful for the hoods for once, Sophie's concealed blush burned on her cheeks. "How did you—" she started, but he just shrugged. "Call it intuition," he said, giving her a small smile. Sophie looked at him cautiously. This still could be Fitz—despite the lack of the accent, he still could be him if she got a look at his eyes. Besides, he seemed the right height for Fitz so that was another thing. He could be lying to her—she had to make sure he was telling the truth. At Sophie's obvious skepticism, he just chuckled again. "Yeah, he told me you would be skeptical," he said, surprising Sophie once again. If this really wasn't Fitz... Was he in contact with him?!_

 _When she continued to eye him warily, he sighed but a small smile graced his lips. "I can completely understand the trust issues," he commented, his hands rising to his hood. Sophie widened her eyes; was he about to do what she thinks he was about to do? "But I'm not lying." Still smiling slightly, the telepath lifted his hood up and off of his head before moving to remove his mask. "You think I'm your friend, but I can assure you, I am not."_

 _He lifted his head._

 _Sophie couldn't help but feel disappointment wrack up in her stomach. The boy wasn't lying; he wasn't Fitz. Although they were the same build, there were lots of other differences: this boys face was slimmer, and not as defined as Fitz's; and while they both had brown hair, Fitz's was darker, more of a dark chocolate-brown, while the telepath's had a red-ish, slight auburn flare to it. They were also styled differently. While Fitz had his hair longer, and fall in front of his forehead, this boy had his hair styled the typical guy way—it was curved upwards almost, and was not too long_ **(A/N: I'm pretty sure we all know what kind of hairstyle I'm talking about here, lol. Just picture the typical "grade 9 boy" cut. Almost everyone has it at my school)** _. Finally (and most disappointingly), his eyes. They weren't the sparkling teal blue green sea glass colour that she had wished to see. Interestingly enough, they weren't even bright, unlike most elves. Actually, the telepath had navy blue eyes that reminded her of a midnight sky._

 _Sophie hadn't realized that she had been staring off into space until the boy spoke once more. "Do you believe me now?" He asked, and Sophie snapped out of her little trance, turning to look at him. He had already put his mask and hood back on and he was looking at her with that same intent look he had given her before. Not exactly sure why she felt so breathless all of a sudden, she nodded as a response. Then it hit her: "You've talked to him? Where is he?!" She almost demanded of him. When all the telepath did was smirk at her, she frowned at him. It was a obvious that he wasn't going to tell her; but why wouldn't he?_

 _When asked just that, the towpath raised his arms in defence. "Okay, first of all; I don't even know where he is. All he did was transmit to me this one time, and when we met up, he told me to look out for you guys, because although he had transmitted to you to leave, he had a feeling you wouldn't," he snickered lightly. "Yeah, he was right." Sophie crossed her arms, the annoyed look still on her face. "Well since he's obviously talking to you and not me, tell him that we don't need protecting. And that if he wants to see how we are, he should find us himself," she said sternly. The telepath snorted. "He also told me to tell you guys to leave but sine that's obviously not happening..." he sighed, and looked down at her, "I guess I should tell you that he didn't show me his face and I don't know which division he's in so yeah. I can't really help you out there," he said, answering Sophie's unsaid questions. "Is there anything else?" Sophie thought for a moment before nodding. "Why did you help me the other day?" She asked him, looking curiously. He just shrugged. "You could've died," he said nonchalantly. "Well yeah, but you don't even know me. And from what I see, Waywards don't usually help each other out around here," she said. The boy looked thoughtful for a moment, before smiling his signature small smile at her. "I don't really know actually. You were just—intriguing," he said._

 _Before Sophie could really ask him what that meant, he looked out and frowned. "We need to go," he said, moving to leave, but Sophie grabbed his arm. "Hold on—I don't even know your name," she said furrowing her eyebrows. She still had a bunch of questions, but he was still right; the coaches would be furious if they don't come back soon. The telepath looked at her hand, then her, and smiled again. "You can call me Aver," he said simply. Sophie let go of his arm, lost in thought, but when she blinked her eyes, he was gone._

Present:

After that, Sophie had trouble finding both Fitz _and_ Aver. She had never shared their secret conversation with the others, telling them instead that she had gone out into the forest to clear her mind. She wanted to transmit to Aver, but she couldn't find him again. She had been lucky the first time—but now she supposed that now that they have talked, he was actually trying to evade her. It was frustrating, as she believed that he actually knew the whereabouts of Fitz, and was just keeping the info away from her because e had asked him too. It also didn't help that there were divisions—Sophie had checked: Aver wasn't in Ambi. And the others were too far away for her to really check. She debated asking the others to look for him, but that would prompt them to ask why, and Sophie didn't really know the answer to that question. Part of it was the fact that she thinks he knows where Fitz is—but there was also something else about him that made her curious. She wasn't really sure, and she wasn't about to give her friends an indefinite answer either. She guessed that she would just have to wait and see.

Sophie sighed deeply as she and her friends used their leaping crystals to light leap back to Exillium. Honestly, she was surprised that she had even been welcomed back considering some of the trouble she had caused accidentally in the past few days; one of them being her rather rash decision to jump off a cliff in order to help an gnome who had the spreading virus that was going on within their species. Keefe had jumped over to help her too, but Biana and Dex had been grabbed before they could come. The two of them together teleported to Elwin to deliver the sick gnome to be under care, but the Coaches had been furious when they returned. The only reason they had not been kicked out was because of the fact that the gnomes had helped out all of them for generations and the sickness, in a way, was effecting them too. Sophie knew she was really lucky, but she didn't regret anything—and she told them that. That gnome would've died had it not been for her and Keefe's assistance, and if she hadn't helped, then she would've never forgiven herself.

She supposed that was another reason why she hadn't been kicked out, because although their expressions had not changed, Sophie could still detect a small amount of what seemed like respect in their eyes when she said that. But even so, good things had came out of her stay at Exillium too. She had met both the shade and then hydrokinetic that helped save her the first day, and they revealed themselves to be twins. Their names were Tam and Linh Song. They had been sent to Exillium since Linh had a little incident with Atlantis, and Tam refused to let her go alone. He was fiercely protective of her and although she was much more mellow, Sophie could tell she was of him too. In order to finally gain his trust, she had let him do something he called "a shadow reading" that apparently measured how much darkness you had in your soul she guessed—she wasn't so sure. It was a whole new concept to her, after all.

Though it was cold, and a little creepy, she let him anyways as she wanted to gain his trust. Now that she has gained it from him, she feels even more trusting in Tam—the same cannot go for her friends, who nearly went into hysterics when she left them a brief message before leaving with the twins. They nearly throttled her for it later, but she found it was worth it. She assured her friends that they would learn to trust them too but they were still skeptical. In the meantime, they all needed to be in this school, in order to find Fitz, who she hoped hadn't left. She'd been transmitting to him every single day and night, but he never replies—she had also tried to track his thoughts like they usually did in Basequest, but he had somehow managed to to block that off too. It was incredibly frustrating; Fitz using his newfound skills made it a lot harder to find him. But no matter how frustrating it was, she wouldn't give up—and she knew her friends wouldn't either. It was just so patronizing at times when you don't know where your friend is, but you know they can _hear_ you.

Their class was held inside the shady looking building they called the School Building for once, as they needed to use the gym. Like most elvin things, it was incredibly large on the inside, rather than the drab, grey and long looking building they saw on the outside. The building had many rooms for many things; even normal classrooms, which made Sophie wonder why they weren't using those rooms instead of always being outdoors.

 **They say it's a punishment for past Wayward's disobedience, but they're terrible liars**

Sophie would've jumped if she hadn't already been used to the soft yet condescending whisper of Tam Song. She found herself scoffing in response.

 _That's stupid. The weathers always nice—how is that a punishment? Plus, aren't they putting this building to waste by not using it at all?_

 **Like is said; they're bad liars. This building really just reminds them of particular Waywards they had to deal with in the past, and would rather not acquire those reminders by using this building every day. And it's not just for teaching: they store the food, supplies, and other bedded things in here too. That's actually what most of these rooms are for.**

Sophie looked around at her surroundings and realized that she had only seen a few classrooms among the vast amount of rooms they had passed. She shrugged idly. She guessed that made sense. Then, remembering the question she had been saving for the shade, she asked, making sure to keep his name out (for privacy purposes, she supposed):

 _Do you know the telepath who saved me the first day?_

There was quiet for a moment, and Sophie thought he wasn't going to respond. Then she heard him:

 **I know of him, yes.**

 _Do you know how long he's been here for?_ She asked him, hopefully not sounding too urging.

 **Why is that relevant?**

 _Just curious._

She heard Tam sigh and her heart was pumping with anticipation with every step she took. She had no idea why—maybe it was the sensation of wanting to know something. Because in Sophie's life, to know things was not an easy place to come by.

After what seemed like forever, she finally got a reply:

 **I'm not entirely sure: I think he came here about a month ago, but it could be a little more than that. All I really remember from that day was his trials.**

From the slight wisp of shock that was evident in his tone, curiosity spiked up within her once more.

 _What happened?_ She asked.

 **It's more like what didn't happen.**

She furrowed her eyebrows at that. _What do you mean?_

She heard the boy sigh again. **Well, he was put through the same trial as you and your friends were—the same everyone else always was in. Except, with him, it didn't really work.**

 _What do you mean it didn't work?_ She inquired. Tam was quiet for a other moment, seemingly in contemplation, before speaking:

 **Well...He dodged it.**

Sophie felt her eyebrows furrow again until her eyes widened with understanding.

 _He dodged the ropes?!_

She could basically sense Tam's nod at the back of her head.

 **Actually, I guess I should say 'them' you see, the whole yard is basically rigged with ropes. The coaches just trigger the ones you step in. But seemingly seconds before the red coach triggered the trap, his head sort of shot up and he just jumped—literally, jumped right on top of the arch. He also noticed us too, even though we were silent; something only you and he ever did during the trials.**

Sophie wondered, perhaps, if that was another reason why Tam had 'approached' her.

 **We all just kind of stared at him, gobsmacked, and I guess we were all in some sort of trance because suddenly, one of the kids gasped and he was right in front of all of us in seconds. I swear I was looking at the arc the entire time, and I didn't Ben see him move—once.**

Sophie felt her eyebrows raise. No wonder Aver was able to catch her so quickly. Tam was silent for a few moments before continuing:

 **I don't know his name, nor how he did it, but all I do know is that he ended up in the right hemisphere with the red coach.**

She gasped lightly. That was Biana's hemisphere. That certainly made things easier for finding him, especially if she wanted to transmit. All she would need to do is find him.

Wringing her fingers, Sophie debated on whether or not to ask Tam if he knew about Fitz. He would probably ask her why she was asking about Waywards—but she really did what to find him. Making up her mind, she asked the question.

 **Why are you asking about all of these people?**

Called it.

Sophie sighed. _He's a close friend of mine that went missing a while ago,_ she explained. She knew her friends would be upset with her for sharing this info—especially if they knew it was with a shade. But Sophie found herself trusting him—she didn't know why, but she did.

 **Look, I don't know. We don't get to know their names and the only trial that really stood out was the telepath's. there's been a few other ones other than him: two girls, a guy, and then you guys.**

Sophie felt her heart race. _What did the guy look like?_

 **Um, have you seen our uniforms?**

She sighed defeatedly. He did have a point.

 **Look, I think he might of been brunette? I don't know , his hood fell of when he was upside down but it was kind of dark out.**

That had actually helped her more than he knew. But Sophie wasn't about to et her hopes up. She still had to find him: and among these Waywards, that was practically impossible.

 **I assume your silence means we're done.**

She snapped out of her little trance at the sound of his voice in her ear.

 _Yeah. Thanks, that helped a lot._

 **Well, either way it's a good thing we're done. Cause we're here.**

Looking up, Sophie saw that they indeed were already at the training room, making her exactly how long she and Tam had been talking. A minute? Two? It felt much longer than that but in reality, was probably no longer than that, if longer even. But now that they were here, she felt her heart clench for two reasons: one was because it would be easier to find not only Fitz but Aver too while in here, and the second was because that they were about to spar—SPAR. Sophie swallowed thickly. She really hoped they wouldn't assign partners. She was sure that anyone who wasn't her friends, the twins, and maybe Aver, would love to have a chance to pound her to the ground. After all, she had caused a lot of problems. "PAIR UP!" The sharp voices of the three coaches commanded, and Sophie let out a huge breath of relief. Maybe now she wouldn't get completely pummelled (her friends were still 50x better at fighting than herself, so...). She scoured the crowd, looking for Biana, only to gasp and jump when she felt a hand clamp on her arm. Whipping around, she looked over towards where the person grabbed her: her pounding heart calmed—it was only Biana herself.

Once again did she feel herself let out a breath of relief. "Sophie?" Her friend questioned, moving her hand to her shoulder. "I'm sorry if I startled you. I camas over to ask if you wanted to be partners." Unable to speak, Sophie nodded at her, not knowing why she was sweating beads on her forehead all of a sudden. Biana must've noticed this because her perfect face creased up in concern. "Are you okay? You seem a little freaked out," she said, looking at Sophie curiously. Sophie just nodded, forcing a smile on her face. "Yeah, I'm fine," she assured her, looking out from the corner of her eye to see her coach watching her intently. "We should probably go; I think we're going to start soon," she informed her friend.

Giving her one last look, Biana nodded and grabbed her hand. "Cmon, we're over here." She said, pulling her over to where she assumed Keefe and Dex were waiting. As she did this, Sophie took a chance to scan the room. She couldn't see Aver—his hood must've been up—but she did spot Linh and Tam, who she locked eyes with the latter for a few seconds, before looking away again— and then her attention was caught on something else. It was a glimpse—barely categorized as one to be completely honest, as her eyes only caught it for a millisecond, but she swore she saw it—it was there, she was sure of it: underneath the eyebrows of an unknown hooded figure;

Teal.

* * *

 **So how was that? Im hoping it was decent. I made it a little shorter this time (believe it or not), so I hope it's not too hard to read. Also, I didn't have much time to go over and check over the writing, as I literally wrote more than half of this just now, so I apologize greatly for the grammar mistakes and such. Anyways, I have to go now, but I hope I can update soon! See y'all later!**

 **-Someonewhodoesntcare**


	10. Chapter 10: Guardian Angel

**Hey people-o's! Sorry for the lateness of this post but I've been pretty busy with schoolwork and such. However, now that I have an easy semester, I can happily say that I am able to post just a tidbit more often than not, so yay! I hope you guys enjoy this chapter and expect an update for Fitz and the Fox soon because I really do want to bring that book to an end. But yeah without further ado, here is chapter 10!**

Sophie staggered on her feet, clutching Biana's sleeve just in time to indicate her friend that she was about to fall. The brunette quickly steadied her, looking at her with concern. "Sophie? You okay? What happened?" She asked but Sophie could only shake her head, breathing out a breath of pure stupor. Her eyes scanned wildly for that hint of teal that she managed to catch a glimpse of earlier, and was distraught when she couldn't find them again. Feeling Biana shaking her shoulders, Sophie finally snapped out of it enough to turn her attention back towards her friend. "It was him," she breathed out, not even bother bing to fix the fallen strand of hair that fell in front of her face. Biana's eyes widened, realizing what she was talking about. "Are you sure," she whispered, her grip on Sophie's shoulders tightening just slightly. She could tell that Biana was trying not to get drunk hopes up. Sophie nodded vigorously. "Yes, I'm sure of it. Teal eyes, exactly like yours," she proclaimed. Biana looked back to where Sophie was staring, an emotion in her eyes that was hard for the blonde to decipher. It quickly fell to disappointment before she could. "Look Sophie, maybe you just saw someone else—" Biana started, her eyes downcast, but Sophie cut her off, shaking her head. "No, I swear it was him. Only you two have teal eyes that bright," she insisted.

Once again did Biana fight down her rising hope, and swallowed loudly. She was silent for a moment before letting out a sigh. "Alright look, we can tell the others about this later, but right now the coaches will kill us if we don't go over there and start "sparring,"" she air quoted the last word secretly. "Let's just go, okay?" Sophie sighed, obviously upset, but nodded anyways as she knew Biana had a solid point. The last thing they needed was to get in trouble with the coaches again, especially herself. She had a feeling that the coaches were on the near edge of being done with her.

"Hey, what was with the delay?" Keefe asked as the two girls approached him and Dex. They two glanced between each other before shrugging. "We'll tell you after," she assured them, placing a hand on Keefe's shoulder. He and Dex gave them slight suspicious looks, but thankfully shrugged it off as the blue coach began to speak. "Review with your partners the basic block-defense, reflective and offensive techniques from earlier on in the week. Once done, go into a spar but remember to use those techniques," he instructed, "you may begin." With that said, the Waywards began to fight. Sophie couldn't help but since as she observed the other students fight while she practiced the blocks with Biana. They were very rough with each other—whether it was guy and guy, girl and girl, or guy and girl, they never went easy on one another. She flinched as she saw one boy hammer kick a girl backwards and laugh about it, only for the girl to stand up and put him in a painful looking headlock. At another corner of the room, two girls had completely given up the sparring techniques and resorted to jut plain old wrestling instead, viciously clawing and punching at each other as they rolled around on the ground. The red coach walked calmly by then. None of the other Waywards or coaches seemed to care that they were hurting each other. Maybe they wanted it to happen. Sophie felt herself shudder at the thought. These people were brutal.

She continued to watch in horror as two boys basically tried to kill each other, only to be knocked over completely as Biana landed a punch to her shoulder—a punch that she accidentally forgot to block. Biana gasped, covering her mouth with her hands, as she quickly went over to help her friend up. "Sophie I am so, so sorry, I really didn't mean that!" She apologized hastily as she helped Sophie to her feet. The girl just shook her head. "Biana it's definitely not your fault, it's mine: I was distracted and I didn't block it," she reasoned with her, giving her a small smile to assure her that it was okay—even though her shoulder throbbed slightly now; but that was only because Sophie was incredibly terrible in hand-to-hand combat. Other Waywards seemed to notice that too, as a couple of girls started to laugh about how it only took a punch to the shoulder to get her to the ground, and a few boys mock her from afar, witnessing the epic failure that she had displayed. Sophie fought the urge to try and hide behind her hair. More ridicule—just great.

"Hey blondie, if someone blows on you, will you fall over from that too?" One of the boys ask her tauntingly, causing a steady laughter to flow through the room. The only ones who weren't laughing were the coaches, who were observing with indifference, Tam and Linh, who were giving her a sympathetic look, her friends, who were glaring angrily at the mockery, and strangely enough, one other kid. But they had their hood up so Sophie couldn't observe who they were.

"Hey loudmouth—back off," Biana snapped at the boy, walking over to Sophie's side protectively. "Yeah, shut up pal, or I'll make it happen," Keefe threatened, a dark and angry look in his eye as both he and Dex went towards her as well. Beside the boy, a red haired girl smirked. "Aw, the poor girl needs her little friends to protect her, how sweet," she sneered, snickering along with the others. Biana glared and opened her mouth to say something, but Dex spoke first. "Yeah, she's sweet; really sweet, actually," he said with a gentle shrug, "considering how she hasn't moved to pummel you to the ground yet." Beside him, Keefe chuckled and Biana smirked, crossing her arms and arching an eyebrow at the rude girl, who scoffed at her. "Oh please—I know who she is; she's a Vacker. The little princess would never be able to fight, she'd cry too much if one of her dainty little nails broke in the process," she laughed, with the others joining in with her. Keefe laughed too—but not for the same reason. Instead, he slowly started to fall into hysterical laughter, causing the offenders to die down their own and give him a strange look. Wiping an imaginary tear from his eye, Keefe grinned at them, shaking his head almost pitifully. "Man, are you in for a harsh reality," he said to the red haired girl, continuing to snicker to himself. The girl frowned at him as Biana looked like she was ready to literally murder the girl. Sophie glanced between the two uneasily. She had a real bad feeling about this.

"Guys, I—" she started, but the boy who'd made the comment from earlier walked to the front and sneered at Keefe. "Why don't ya shut up, you loser?" He snarled, before a wicked grin curled up onto his lips. "Or should I say, PANTS loser." Loud laughter erupted through the crowd and Keefe felt his cheeks heat up slightly. Angered, Biana stepped forward towards the guy. "Leave him alone," she said, only to have the red haired girl walk up into her personal space. "And what are you gonna do about it, Miss rich thing?" She mocked her, shoving her backwards. Biana narrowed her eyes, looking very close to going beast mode on her, but before Sophie could intervene, somebody else did for her: "Being a little shit again, Abrey?" Though her eyes hardened, Abrey's stature immediately stiffened at the sound of the monotone voice that was distinctly familiar to Sophie. The figure with their hood up that had not laughed before came up towards the two girls. As he turned around, Sophie caught sight of navy blue eyes and gasped—it was Aver.

Abrey glared at him, though fear was definitely seen in her eyes. Behind them, the crowd took a few steps back. Sophie wondered why everyone was so afraid of him. "Butting into things that don't concern you, Aver?" She snapped back at him. He simply arched an eyebrow at her before a tiny smirk tugged onto his lips. "It's what i do best," he said, the smirk turning into a grin. He looked at Biana, then to Dex, then to Keefe, and then finally, at Sophie. His eyes lingered on hers for a little while, before the side of his lips quirked up into a knowing small smile before tearing his attention back to Abrey, the smile diminishing instantly and all playfulness on his face vanished completely. "Leave them alone," he ordered in a stone cold voice that made everyone shiver—even Tam. Abrey completely gave up trying to be brave and gulped, throwing one last glare at Biana before backing away from her. But not surprisingly, the other boy took her place. "What, you think you run this place, Aver?" He hissed, getting up into his personal space. "You ain't top shit around here—so when you try and tell people what to do, consequences can happen." Cracking his knuckles, he stepped even closer into the small boy's space. Aver just looked blankly at him, eyeing him as if he were looking at air. "...If you wanna punish me, Myrius, all you need to do is breathe again. Your breath is deadly enough to kill trees," he stated plainly.

Most of the Waywards laughed at this, causing Myrius' face to go red in both anger and embarrassment. Growling, he made to lunge towards Acer, but Sophie found herself between the two before any damage could be done. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on," she said, standing in front of Aver almost protectively. She didn't really know why she was acting like this—after all, she barely knew this kid, and she didn't really have a plan in mind about how she was going to approach this. But once again, her feet decided to move without informing her brain, forcing her into another sticky situation. Myrius just glared at her and she gulped slightly, looking up at the auburn haired boy behind her. He simply looked back down at her, eyebrow arched in mild curiosity and amusement. Puffing out a breath, Sophie turned to face Myrius. "Look, can't we just all calm down about this?" She asked—well, more like pleaded—with the two. Unfortunately for her, it wasn't that easy. Once again did Abrey step up in front of Myrius and got right up into Sophie's personal space, making the girl to walk back as far as she could until she backed up against Aver's chest inadvertently.

However, the red haired girl didn't give her much time to be embarrassed. "And what will you do if we don't?" She asked challengingly, smirking at her. When Sophie couldn't come up with a reply, the girl barked out a mocking laugh. "That's what I thought, freak," she sneered before shoving her to the floor. Sophie tumbled over, bracing herself for the impact of the cool, stone floor, but it never came. As quick as lightning seemingly, did Aver reach out his hand, grab her arm and straighten her before Sophie could even comprehend it herself. Swallowing down her surprise, she went to thank him, but was distracted by the commotion going on beside them. "Hey—watch it, pal," Biana snapped at Abrey, stepping towards her. The other girl just smirked and planted her hands on her hips as she stalked towards her. "Or what?" She asked, before moving to shove Biana to the ground—however, before she could do so, the Vacker girl grabbed both of her arms and delivered a sharp kick to her chest, sending Abrey at least five feet back away from her. The girl wheezed, clutching her chest in pain on the floor as Biana merely arched her eyebrow at her. "That's what," she stated simply, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

Internally, Sophie groaned. This was exactly what she didn't want to happen. Not that she wasn't proud of Biana, she was extremely proud of her for standing her ground (plus she acted out in self defence), but now this would prompt the others to act out as well. Her predictions were clarified as Myrius angrily moved towards Biana, ready to strike out at her, but Keefe got there first. "Hey man, back off," he said, pushing him a little bit away from Biana. The boy sneered at him before roughly grabbing him by the scuff of his shirt. "Would you rather it be you, blondie?" He hissed, fully ready to punch Keefe in the face. "Keefe!" Sophie called out frantically, moving to help aid him, but she soon realized she didn't need to—once again moving like the Flash, Aver was by Myrius' side in a millisecond, holding his arm in a tight, painful looking grip. "Let go of him," he commanded in a darker tone than his usual one. He really didn't need to tell him that though, as Myrius looked close to releasing Keefe anyways because of the pain now acquired in his other arm. Yelling out a poignant cry, he quickly released the boy, sighing in relief when Aver released his arm right after.

Myrius rubbed his sore arm, glaring viciously at Aver, although fear was clearly detected in his eyes. "You'll pay for that," he growled out angrily. "I'll get you so good for that one Aver, I swear." The boy in question rolled his eyes at the boy's rather pathetic threat. "I'm sure you will," he murmured, waving his hand dismissively in his direction. Myrius clenched his jaw and started to walk menacingly in Aver's direction when the coaches approached them, finally tuning in on the situation. "Is there a problem here?" the blue coach asked, eyebrow raised questioningly. Myrius and Abrey opened their mouths, but were cut off by Aver, who merely shrugged his shoulders. "I don't believe so," he replied calmly, "at least, not anymore." he looked over to the two instigators. "Right?" he asked, his tone masking a hint of threat.

Both of the two closed their mouths almost instantly, though it didn't stop them from shooting the auburn haired boy a dirty look. "Everything's fine, sir," Abrey said coolly, still eyeing Aver with hate. The coaches nodded and loomed back to their previous seats, and as soon as they were out of ear shot, Abrey snarled at Biana. "You got lucky," she hissed at her. "Next time, you better watch your back." Biana didn't say anything—she just continued to look at the girl with disgust. Myrius, on the other hand, glared deeply at Aver but made no threatening moves as he sulked back to his group of cronies with Abrey close behind her. "Hey, thanks dude," Keefe said to Aver, patting him on the shoulder. The boy merely shrugged but deep inside his dark eyes, Sophie noticed a simmer of what seemed to be fondness, so slight, she wasn't sure if it was even there in the first place. But she could never tell with Aver; he was amazing at hiding his emotions, so well, that she doubted even empaths like Keefe could detect them without having a bit of a struggle. That was just the way he seemed to be.

Her friends, whom had started to walk back to their previous spots, noticed Sophie was lagging behind. "Sophie, you coming?" Keefe called back to her and thats when she realized that she had been zoning out into space. She turned back around to face him. " I'll be over in a minute," she told them. Her friends shrugged an continued to walk, all talking amongst one another. Probably about Aver. "…Yes?" Speak of the devil. Sophie turned her face to look up at him; he was facing the opposite direction of her, yet he still sensed her presence. Odd. Sophie shook out of her thoughts, reminding herself to stay focused at the task at hand. "Why do you keep helping me?" she blurted out involuntarily, cringing as she heard the words leaving her mouth. Shoot. She really didn't mean to say that. It sounded like she was ungrateful for all of his help.

However, Aver didn't seem to mind. Still not turning to face her, he spoke. "Well, he would do it himself, but then you'd know where he is," he murmured, shoving his hands into his pockets. Sophie didn't need him to elaborate on the identity of the "he" he was referring to. She sighed in frustration, moving to stand beside him. Man, this boy was tall. Her head didn't even reach his shoulder. "If you really wanted to help me, you'd tell me where Fitz is," she countered. she heard Aver elicit a sigh himself. "It's not that easy," his mentioned voice reached her ears. "Even if I wanted to seek him out first, I couldn't; the boy's very low-profile. Whenever we talk, which is not often mind you, he comes to me—not the other way around." Sophie sighed, knowing exactly what Aver was talking about. Fitz was always so good at being inconspicuous. "If you want my opinion, stop trying. You're never going to be able to find him unless he wants to be found," Aver told her. Sophie lightly rolled her eyes. As if she didn't know this already. After all, she's known Fitz much longer than he has. He's stubborn—incredibly so.

But unfortunately for him, Sophie is too.  
If Fitz isn't gonna give-up, then neither is she.

"Well it's a good thing I didn't want your opinion then," she said simply before turning on her heel to join her friends.

Behind her, she could've sworn she heard a soft, breathy chuckle moving faintly in the air.

 **AAAAANNNNNND that's all! I hope you guys enjoyed this chapter and I also want to take them to say thank you for all the lovely reviews! So what do you guys think of** **Aver? I read a few disappointed comments saying that they don't really like him because he's kind of like a replacement for Fitz. Well, do not fear my amazing people! He is most certainly NOT a replacement of Fitz. MORE GOOD NEWS! The next chapter will be a Fitz pov chapter! YAY!**

 **Some things will also be revealed there in time, hehe. You guys are going to learn a little more about Fitz and what he thinks of his friend's attendance at exillium. This chapter will be shorter than the rest so I would expect it sooner than later. And I actually mean it this time so yeah.**

 **But anyways, don't forget to review this stuff, tell me all ya thoughts! I must go but until next time!**

 **-Someonewhodoesntcare.**


	11. Chapter 11: Incognito

**Hey guys! sorry I haven't updated in a while, I've had major writer's block, ugh. Imma just cut to the chase, this chapter's going to be short unfortunately, but it will also reveal quite a lot as well so stay tuned ;) Anyways, I hope you enjoy!**

Were they all out of their freaking minds?!

Fitz shook his head as he paced back and forth in front of his little homemade hut within the forest, running his hands through his hair multiple times. What in the hell were his friends and his sister doing in Exillium!? He let out a frustrated sigh, annoyance, concern, and regret spreading all throughout him at once. He honestly thought he'd found a place to escape everyone. He sincerely thought Exillium was the place to go. He knew his friends to constantly get themselves into trouble (especially Keefe—and now, as it seems, Sophie too), but he never expected to end up seeing them in Exillium.

Just what in Eternalia did those idiots do to wind up in a place like this?!

Fitz groaned, damn near pacing a hole into the dirt. Why couldn't he have any luck? Why did life hate him? And most irritatingly, why did he have such stubborn friends? He tried telling Sophie once through transmission to leave, and twice through Aver, but no—that girl was too headstrong for her own good. Fitz shook his head, although it took a lot in him to try and suppress a smile. Despite proving to be one of her more annoying qualities, he found himself admiring Sophie's perseverance—and he couldn't help but feel a little flattered about it too. After all, he was the object of it. It showed that they really cared...

He felt the smile on his face before he processed it. No. He couldn't think like that. Thinking like that would only bring guilt, which would eventually lead to relent, which he couldn't afford to do. If he relented and let his friends find him, he'd justly lead them to danger. Although he wasn't being hunted as of right now, Fitz's senses were acting up. He had that same feeling he always got when he felt trouble approaching; but this was a more—faraway kind of feeling... He found it hard to explain to even himself.

Then again, trying to make sense of his abilities had never really proved to be anything but futile. The whole reason he infiltrated the old Neverseen base in the first place was to try and find out more about himself, try and find some answers—and all that did was create the reason of having to hide at Exillium.

The brunette sighed wistfully as he reevaluated the chain of events. He really did have literally no luck whatsoever did he? But whining about it wouldn't do anything; well sure, there wasn't really much he could do that would help the situation, period, but whining sure as hell wouldn't either so he reckoned he should stop. The one thing he could really do about his situation was hope; hope that Sophie and company would be out of Exillium soon and if not that, then at least stay out of trouble. Fitz groaned as he recalled the fight that had nearly escalated earlier on in the day. It had been his fault that it had all started, and he nearly gave himself away in the midst of it. He rubbed his face with his hand tiredly. If Aver hadn't stepped in, he didn't know what would've happened.

He'd nearly blown his cover when Myrius had grabbed Keefe—after all, nobody messed with his best friend and got away with it—but he managed to control himself from attacking Myrius right then and there. That would have definitely been incredibly suspicious. Fitz took a couple deep breaths to subdue the anger he still felt even just thinking about the moment. He really needed to work to control his emotions if he wanted to remain incognito. Which reminds him:

Speaking of his failure in deception

He was serious when he said that the whole scenario was all his fault: if Sophie hadn't seen him, then she wouldn't have been distracted. Yes, he saw; he knew Sophie caught a glimpse of him—after all, his eye did lock on with hers, even if it was for half a millisecond. Fitz turned away as quickly as he possibly could, but he knew she still saw—and that scared the crap out of him. As the days went by, he had been hoping that Sophie and the gang had lost hope in trying to find him through Exillium. But now that she'd seen him, he knew for a fact that this would just make Sophie more determined.

Fitz couldn't help but feel angry at himself, even though he knew it was going to happen; though the forest had been pretty supplementary with the supplies he needed for the elixir, he had ran out of his last batch of bluumberries and didn't have time to pick another—therefore he had to use one and a half instead of the standard two required to make the mixture. It was a miracle that it still worked, but it didn't come without its flaws.

It was like the effects malfunctioned; the elixir that was concealing his appearance had ceased working on his left eye. Fitz had felt the effect wear off as soon as it had happened, and him, being the dumb idiot he was, had widened his eyes—giving Sophie the perfect opportunity to spot him.

No matter how quickly he had turned away, he knew she had inevitably still seen him. Luckily enough he'd felt his eyes change back to its feigned midnight blue colour, but the damage had still been done. He was annoyed, but he thanked the heavens that it had only been his eye. He didn't even want to imagine what would've happened if his entire appearance changed at once; the height difference, the hair, the eyes, everything—Exillium uniform or not, it still would have been noticeable.

Fitz sighed and sat down on a nearby stump, resting his head in his hand. He didn't know how much longer he could keep this 'Aver' act up.

 **That's it! Sorry again for it being short, but now we know who Aver really is! I will try and** **update soon again, though I doubt it because I lack any ideas. Maybe a reveal will come up soon, but i don't want it to be in the next chapter, so maybe two or even three from now. I also have to remember how the plot of Neverseen goes, lol. Either way, I hope you guys enjoyed and don't forget to give me feedback! Thanks :)**

 **-HWC (yep, changed the name)**


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